DIE: A ROLE-PLAYING GAME V1.1 ARCANA KIERON GILLEN ©2019 ART BY STEPHANIE HANS COVER DESIGN BY RIAN HUGHES Copyright © 2019 Kieron Gillen Ltd & Stéphanie Hans. All rights reserved. DIE, the Die logos, and the likenesses of all characters herein or hereon are trademarks of Kieron Gillen Ltd & Stéphanie Hans. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (except for short excerpts for journalistic or review purposes) without the express written permission of Kieron Gillen Ltd or Stéphanie Hans. All names, characters, events, and places herein are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, or places is coincidental. Representation: Law Offices of Harris M. Miller II, P.C. (rights.inquiries@gmail.com)

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1) ALTERNATIVE WORLD GENERATION METHODS 2) PRE-GENERATED SCENARIOS 3) ACTUAL EXAMPLE GAMES 4) EXPERIMENTAL RULES 5) ESSAYS

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Arcana. Make yourself comfortable. No, wait, not that comfortable. Put that back on, this minute. This is a respectable game manual. You’ll have noticed that the DIE Beta is a considerable beast. That makes it intimidating. It was even more intimidating when this bunch of stuff was included too. That’s why I removed it, you silly goose. There’re basically five sorts of “things” in the Arcana, helpfully arranged into numbered sections. Firstly, there’s alternate world-building and scenarios. The DIE Beta suggests a single set scenario – people who played an RPG as younger people getting back together and then getting sucked into a warped version of their teenage D&D game. This was chosen as it is a strong enough structure to work for any group you throw into it – plus the simple fact that kids getting back together as adults is the same structure the comic uses. This section gives my notes for completely different ways of running DIE – both in terms of the groups of people, and the worlds you drop them into. These are often considerably more demanding on a Master’s planning and/or improv skills, as you’re on your own a lot more. Still – there’s lots of fun stuff in here, which can be added to literally any game of DIE. There’s even one way which makes things simpler. Secondly, I’ve also included a handful of pre-generated non-traditional DIE scenarios, both of which can work as a single-session game, or as a prompt for a larger one. If you’re thinking of writing a DIE scenario for someone else to run or even making a more formal set of notes for yourself, these are likely a useful template to build from. One was originally in the backmatter for issue 7, but the others are new (and one is festive!). Thirdly, there’s additional worked examples of how various people have run DIE. If you’re still chewing over how a DIE game could go and what sort of prep you may wish to do, this is more grist for the mill. This is the Arcana at its most accessible – in fact, the only reason it’s not in the main text is that having five long examples of how DIE could run in the document could overwhelm a newcomer instead of helping them. Fourthly, we have some additional, slightly fiddly non-core rules. The most useful are probably the Minor Miracle generation, which are likely useful to a GM of a more technical bent. There’s a couple of other minor things. If there’s any future Arcana additions, this is likely where I’ll lob stuff for extra playtesting. Fifthly, we have some additional essays which I considered too self-indulgent or tangential to the main thrust of the DIE game, so I hide them here for the sort of people who read the Appendixes in Tolkien to find. This includes also some rough structural thoughts on how to generate an adventure. This was my first attempt to codify What An Adventure Is, and trying to work out a way to give a hard structure for people to follow. When I found the core game (i.e. “Go to your old RPG World”) it felt extraneous. However,

I wanted to get this in front of people to see if it’s of any use, and whether anything is worth integrating elsewhere. Feedback gratefully received. There are also the traditional designer notes because, as you may notice, I Can’t Shut Up. If you’re a newcomer and looking for more assistance, I’d suggest reading the third section, as it’s the one which is designed to be most helpful – and the second section for other examples of how to prepare for a game. The others are generally designed to try and destabilise your thinking, and get you to figure out what you find interesting. This is some of the weirdest stuff that is in DIE, and stuff which is most easily lifted to use in games elsewhere. Feel free to rip it to pieces and make it your own. Basically, this is me down the pub. After one drink, I’m fine, but at some point in the evening I’m going to start talking absolute nonsense and all we can do is pray that you still find it compelling. Thanks for reading. Kieron Gillen London

Can I tell you a story? You know the way locales are generated in the main rules? As in, “Just drop the personas into their teenage RPG world”? Up until January 2019, that didn’t exist – over a year into development and scarily close to the release of the Beta. The most obvious idea in this whole bloody system and I hadn’t had it, until I was prompted by a playtest. This is, of course, one of the many reasons why we do playtests. Before then I had a whole set of different tactics for generating the locale. Like, a bunch of them, and they all kind of work for different kinds of groups of personas. However, as fun as they were, they were also esoteric as all hell. Some would work for one group, but none would work for all groups, which mean it’s a bad thing to stick in a Beta set of rules. Essentially all of them were much more based on extrapolating from players’ obsessions. So a failed band ended up in a horror version of the Reading music festival, and a group of workers at an IT company ended up in a hellish take on actual office space we were running the playtest in. A lot of games were set at cons, as a lot of playtests were at cons. Then I hit a playtest where the group didn’t actually go hyper-vivid, and just developed what the rules asked them to. They were a group of people who played RPGs at school, and then grew up. I had no idea what world to drop them in, and then hit what is now the basic version of the game. As in, if you generate people who (at least mostly) played RPGs together, you can drop them into their old D&D world and get an interesting game with sufficient hooks

to run an adventure on. You generated the details of their teenage world by asking questions during play, and then deconstructing it. You made up something to be nostalgic about, then you applied a darker lens. Immediately, about 10,000 words of different ways to generate worlds were no longer essential to the Beta. They were cut. They now follow here. This whole DIE ruleset is experimental, but what follows is the most experimental of it. It’s mainly of use if you choose to generate a group who didn’t play RPGs together – in other words, if you choose to go that way, you are wayyyy out of the safety bounds of the playtest. But there’s other tactics to generate a locale. They’ve led to some of the most fun DIE games I’ve run… but they also ask a lot more of the person running the game. The easiest way to use the following is to add them as elements to the core DIE game you already know, to add weirdness to an already existing standard fantasy world – for example, if you’re in a traditional D&D castle, and open a door… and find yourself in your persona’s teenage bedroom? That can be creepy and interesting. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I said in the main manual that the further encounters and world building there weren’t a recipe, but rather a cupboard of ingredients and spices to throw into a dish. This is the stuff you keep on the top shelf, as it’s so spicy. A key idea here: you are running this game. You are the keeper of this world. I'm providing tools which are useful to you. Flexibility is absolutely key here. As

are unpredictability and magic. The players can see that there is some meaning here – they can see you're actually clearly doing stuff, moving stuff from the (soon to be explained) Box of Crap and similar... but they can't really entirely understand it, not completely. This is entirely the effect we're looking for. Confronting a world they don't quite understand, but clearly has some manner of rules. That gives a weird solidity to the world, as well as a ritualism and totemism. DIE differs from many RPGs as it is trying to fetishize the RPG, to explicitly mystify it, to use all these bits and pieces and props as producers of mystery and wonder. Put it this way: if I – Kieron Gillen – am playing your game, I won't know for sure how your world works. It is deliberately concealed from me. That is its magic. HOW DO I USE THIS STUFF? The core process to using the following methods in a game of DIE is this: 1) Generate a group of people who

know each other. Remove all limitations from the Beta in terms of the questions they’re asking and asked – all that remains is that they’re getting together for some reason to play an RPG.

2) Look at the resultant personas and decide which of the available tactics would generate a useful world. Choose one or more.

3) Continue as a normal game of DIE. Here’s some more options:

1) THEY ENTER THEIR PRESENT TABLETOP RPG WORLD I’ll put this here explicitly, to remind you that it’s an option. The core DIE game rules describe a group getting back together and getting dragged into their teenage RPG world. It doesn’t have to be their teenage RPG world. It can be the RPG they’re normally playing on any week when they’re not being dragged screaming into another dimension. The time-jump in the core rules is explicitly about echoing the comic. The core DIE game experience should be what the comic does, right? That’s why the game does it. However, it is actually a little more complicated than just playing in a single time window. It also has the advantage of being able to plug any group into the scenario – including more personas who’ve never played an RPG before. The only problem is making sure there’s enough narrative meat in the personas. This all comes from asking questions to ensure the group has needs and connections, as always. 2) DARK MIRRORS OF REAL LOCATIONS This is arguably the easiest way to generate a map. Take a real-world location and set-dress it like it's in a horror or dark fantasy film. Ideally, this map should be in the Box of Crap, but any real-world location you know (and ideally the players know) is great. For example, using a local mall, an old school or a museum. This is an especially useful method if you're playing a game in a public space, like a games convention. Take the con map, and interpret it like a dungeon

map, using the information on the map to inform whatever happens to the players there. To use the con example, perhaps the retailers are actually a bustling town of merchants desperately selling stuff – equipment, their souls, bits of their body. Or maybe it's a dragon horde, as that's where the money is. These are all just more ingredients to suggest the nature of an encounter. In the second section of the Arcana, you’ll find a pre-generated scenario which uses a con map in exactly this way. In the same way as I suggest using a dark mirror of the room the players are sitting in as a basic option, I would suggest extrapolating the locale around the room (and the house) to generate a setting for encounters if you want a robust option. Expand the house in size, even the smallest flat can be like Mordor. The first encounter is in the living room, the next in the corridor, then up the stairs for a third encounter and so on. Who knows what hell exists in your toilet? If you expand outside the house into the neighbourhood, all the local shops and landmarks can provide a lot of inspiration. I actually live near a graveyard, a school, a church, an old music hall and a railway station. You live near interesting stuff too, even if it's an odd tree, or a weird ditch. If not the meta-approach, there is also the persona-led approach. If players are talking about any real-world location that matters to their persona, you can get hold of the map of that real location and use it. If players are setting their personas in a real town, you can get a map of their town. Someone mentions the British Museum? Download the map and use it as a dungeon.

This is a useful backbone to build on – and you can always switch to another method (and back again) at any point. 3) REINTERPRETING OLD RPG MAPS Rather than playing with the nature of our reality, an alternative approach is playing with the nature of fantasy. As such, take a random RPG supplement with a map, and use it to inspire the dungeon your players are exploring. I stress: this is using the map in the same way that option 1 uses the real world to inspire the encounter. This is born of looking at the map, seeing what each room or corridor is, and then twisting it. If a bank in option 1 becomes a dragon lair, a dragon lair in an old RPG map could become the place where a persona's bank manager lurks, demanding repayment of their looming debts. At the absolute least, this provides a concrete environment for your players to explore. This works especially well with the artificialities of particularly old RPG maps, with their 30 foot by 30-foot rooms. Imagine walking through a place with such geometric precision. That's creepy. Lean into it. One of the points of most of these methods is a way of orientating players in a weird situation. Option 1 generally lets you orientate with real-world knowledge. Option 2 gives the player an actual fictional map. As such, it's useful if you give the players access to this map as early as possible. Perhaps the Fallen in the first encounter are carrying it. Perhaps the first friendly character they meet gives it to them. At which point, simply pass them the map so everyone can see it. Let them savour the existential horror of having a perfect map of their environment and then not

have a clue what is true and what isn't and what anything actually means. The exception to the above would be if you're using a map your players are aware of from a previous non-DIE game they played with you. As such, using their own recollections of the place may be sufficient... though even then, if you have the players’ own map of a dungeon from a previous game, passing it back to them is an incredibly powerful, creepy moment. This is the reason why I've been storing every bit of gaming tat my social group produces, in case I ever need it for something like this. To stress: I would check with players that they are okay with this level of meta before progressing. In terms of interpreting the maps, rather than just basing it on what's in the map, also pay attention to details in the legend of a map. Often these are numbers. As a number is related to each player (the number of sides on their dice) this may be used to hint towards which rooms are important to each player. Look for patterns and exploit them. Even if the players never figure out your mystic code, that you are working according to a predefined pattern will add to the reality of the fantasy they are exploring. 4) JUST USE ANY FANTASY WORLD Rather than using any specific dungeon map and riffing on it (as above), or a generic fantasy world, just drop people into whatever fantasy world you like. Middle-earth. Narnia. The Forbidden Realms. Dragonlance’s Krynn. Warhammer 40,000’s Necromunda. Anything.

And I do mean any setting. Whedon’s Sunnydale. George Lucas’s Tatooine. Ron Gilbert’s Monkey Island. No, I really do mean any setting. Dante’s Hell. William Shakespeare’s Verona. Jane Austen’s Bath. No, I really do-do mean any setting. Marco Polo’s China. Machievelli’s Italy. Matthew, Mark, Luke or John’s Jerusalem. In other words, all worlds are fantasy worlds, because when they’re written down they’ve had to pass through their creators’ heads – as in, they’ve had to render a world imaginary to write it down. To think is to imagine. That’s what we do. If there’s a place that seems to speak to one of the persona’s obsessions (especially the Master persona you’re playing) then dropping the players in this world and letting them explore can be fun. The story and encounters are generated by intersecting the players’ obsessions and desires with the fiction. Say you drop the players in Middle-earth, in Rivendell, during the council to decide the future of the Ring. If a persona is worried about their wedding, there’s obvious connective tissue there. Gandalf merges with traits from his overbearing Grandfather who Knows What’s Best For Him. The level of that is entirely to taste – it can be incredibly overt (Gandalf Actually Looks Like Grandfather) or more subtle (Gandalf works in a similar relationship). This choice does mean that the setting may simply be too large. This would be great for a campaign (and skipping between fantasy worlds, as fictionauts

is certainly something that I’d hope someone does in DIE down the line) but for a standalone scenario trying to come to a climax, it may simply be too large. You will especially have to think about ways to bring the drama to a climax. A useful choice is to limit the setting. Rather than Middle-earth, you could drop the players into the battle for Helm’s Deep and set the whole scenario in that relatively small locale. There are many advantages to this approach, but it’s also one which most presents a world some personas may be attracted to staying in. As it is clearly a whole world rather than a small fictional bottle. “Would you rather live on Earth or Middle-earth?” is a question which is certainly open for a game of DIE and, in many ways, cuts close to the heart of its themes. It is also presented here to underline a key point in the design: each of these bottle kingdoms can be literally any size, up to and including a copy of a whole universe (or even multiverses). And there’s not just one Narnia inside DIE - there’s possibly a nearly endless number of them… DIE is big. It has room for all your fantasies inside it. That’s kind of what it’s for, for better or worse. 5) TAROT MAPS This is a tactic that is more for players who wish to improvise rather than plan, though you can certainly plan for including a tarot map section inside a larger game. I keep a copy of the tarot in my Box of Crap, as it's just a useful atmospheric tool. At moments in play when I want more of a sense of gravitas or mystery, I

stop and draw a tarot card. If it inspires me, I use it. If it doesn't inspire me, I go “hmm” and pretend it's influenced what I'm doing in some way that's entirely mysterious to the players. For example, I was playing at a con, and drew a card. I drew the star, and took it entirely literally, bringing in the con guest of honour as an undead bartender. There's a more elaborate approach, and it's something I call tarot maps. Here you lay cards face down to simulate the map, and as the players explore the dungeon, you flip them over. You use the details on the card in conjunction with the details of the players, to inform whatever encounter. At the very least, it can suggest environment. If you know a lot about tarot, use what you know. If you don’t, use your Imagination. There are two ways of creating a tarot dungeon. The first involves you laying all the cards in the dungeon in one go, in a pattern like so. This means the players see what appears to be the entire size of the dungeon in one go. Something like: The second involves adding cards one at a time as the players progress, so

you only see areas adjacent to your current one, and as you explore further, you lay more cards. Something like this (the face-up card shows where you are, the face-down shows the adjacent room): With either option, you flip the card as the players explore. The advantage of the first one is primarily that everyone knows the shape of the dungeon before you start, which creates a sense of dread and anticipation in the player. The advantage of the second one is that the dungeon is indeterminate, giving you the freedom to vary the size of the dungeon on the fly. If you choose the first one, lay cards in a pattern you think is pretty. You will want to lay at least two cards plus the number of players (e.g. with three players, you'll lay five cards). This is one encounter per player, plus the first and last rooms. You can happily add more, as not every card needs to be an actual encounter which delays the players. Make things pretty, let them move through areas quickly, and when you flip a card which suggests an interesting situation, make it a full encounter.

Progress here would look like this: If you choose the second one, whenever the players explore a card, deal between zero and three cards around it orthogonally. Do whatever makes the map look cool, and decide whether you want this direction to be a dead end or not. Or if you want an actual system, try the following: if the number is odd, there is only one exit. If the number is even, there are two exits. If the card is a major arcana, and has a number of 11 or higher, then it has three exits. If the card is any other major arcana, it has no other exits – as in, it is a dead end. If there is no other way for the players to explore, always at least add one exit, unless it's the final encounter. (See the next page.)

There is one thing which is open with this second option: you can stack the deck and make cool cards appear exactly when you require. Clearly, for those who do sleight of hand, you're sorted. If not, here's the two basic methods:

1) Just literally arrange the deck and don't shuffle it. If you know the number of cards you can play each one in order at the right time.

2) Put the cards you want at the

bottom of the deck and deal from there when you want a specific card.

Clearly the latter is rookie hour, and players can spot it if they're watching intently, which they shouldn't be. If someone does and is rude enough to call it, just tell them “Yes. I am. And?” Depending on your instincts, you can integrate it into the game. For example, if they spot it, just deal the card to the player and leave it in front of them with no explanation. If they ever flip it, an event related to the card happens. They opened pandora’s box. In this case, the punishment being fun and adding to the horror atmosphere is very much the point. If you are going to stack the deck, it's likely best used for the final encounter card. Clearly, having a card that provokes a gasp as they turn it over is a good thing. DIE is totally a trashy enough game to end on the death card, though expect at least one player to point out that it doesn't actually mean literal death, but change. And really smart players may realise that the designers of the game know that too. If you want ones to just mess with people, the tower is a classic, and the devil is also pretty nifty. As a final option, you may wish to use a reduced deck with just the Major Arcana. This will leave to much more obviously significant cards coming up, which may add to the sense of heightened melodrama.

6) RANDOMLY MAKE STUFF UP If you look at your character-based material and really see a natural series of encounters you want to run, the map may be a distraction from what you want to do. There are two options here... 1) Generate the map on the fly. Give

directions and choices, but they lead to wherever you want to go. However, once you've “drawn” the map, it exists. For example, you have two encounters left, and put the players at a T-junction. The players go left. The first of those two encounters is at the end of the passageway. You say there's a passageway on from there. Whether the players carry on, or go back and take the right from the T-junction, they'll find the final encounter there. The question is one of solidity – once you've said something is there, it's there, and as long as you treat it as real once created, you're fine.

2) Go full Alice and lean into the

inability to go back. Like Sarah in Labyrinth, you just travel through these symbolically loaded encounters, and any attempt to retrace your steps is frustrated. The trick here is to make the inability of the players to do that the entire point, and one of your special effects. “You can't go back” is worse than bad – it's boring. Going back down the corridor you've come from and ending somewhere else is what we're looking for. This is something of a trippy game. Make it trippy.

Both these approaches are what is generally referred to as Railroading – as

in, the players’ choices don’t matter. This is generally frowned upon. Especially for a one-off, I wouldn’t dismiss it. Equally, I would suggest that as long as players have plenty of agency inside each of the encounters, you’ll be fine. As DIE tends to encourage encounters to be about choices, and the GM literally not knowing what will happen, a linear string of unpredictable encounters does have certain strengths. 7) USE A MAP GENERATOR Hey! Look at this! A list of links! https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ https://inkarnate.com/ https://watabou.itch.io/ https://worldspinner.com/ http://wiki.secretgeek.net/Category/generators https://twitter.com/ptychomancer/status/980968298002006016 8) ACTUALLY PLAN LITERALLY EVERYTHING Okay. You're a classical RPG Gamesmaster. You're worried about this, and have no experience in improvised games. You'd be happier if you actually had a much stronger structure you could add some more details to. Do that. Just do it like you would a standard role-playing game. You have all the players’ personas and yours. You have time between the first two sessions to develop it. Do so. If you're trying the one-off session, this is trickier. You should develop your Master persona, and then base the backbone of the dungeon around it. You will also likely select a set group and a

key character to lead to a tighter conceptualised group which is of use in the scenario you're running them through. You can still add some details from players, but this is decorating a Christmas Tree rather than trying to grow a Christmas Tree in front of them. I'll give you a robust one for free: the Master is a frustrated writer or fan, and the dungeon you're going through is their own hacky take on whatever they're obsessed by. This option is also here just so a player who has chosen to read this will realise that the GM may not actually be making it all up. Hey, player. Don't be too sure about anything, ever. This is fantasy. You are not in control here. No one is. 9) SOME RANDOM METHOD OF YOUR OWN There’s some more of this in the Box of Crap section, but if you like the tarot dungeon, there’s lots of methods folks have used to make random dungeons from other objects. Or you can make up one of your own. We’re collaborating on this game, friend. I can’t wait to see what you do. 10) COMBINE ANY OF THE ABOVE OR ANYTHING ELSE Including on the fly. Start with a standard map and segue into weird non-linear areas, then get the tarot cards out for the finale. These are all valid tactics. It's worth noting that as DIE develops, “alternate ways to generate content” is certainly on the list of things I'll be doing. The mystery box of the Box of Crap is key.

Oh yeah - the Box of Crap! THE BOX OF CRAP When planning a game, you can consider whether you wish to generate a fake copy of the game DIE (aka the Box of Crap). This is both a prop and a gameplay prompt, and can be as much or little effort as you wish. First, find a box. It can be a mysterious cool box. It can be a cardboard box. It can even not be a box. Anything you can put stuff inside is a suitable box for our purposes. Secondly, find some crap. If you have a history of roleplaying, throwing in some old supplements for random games, character sheets, campaign notes and maps is ideal. If you don't have a history of roleplaying, then putting childhood maps or stories you made inside the box can serve the same purpose. Random old maps from holidays are good items. Maps of famous locations everyone will know. Old photos of childhood. Magazine clippings. The result should look like a somewhat geeky memory box. If you have none of the above, you can ask the players if they have anything they're willing to share. You can also buy random old supplements/gamebooks cheap off eBay, or in second-hand shops. You can simply google “RPG maps” and save and print out anything you find amusing. If you want something novel, there’s many online map generators. I linked to some of them in the previous section. Go print some out. Same goes for maps of old real-world period cities.

If you want to fake distressing newly printed out material, you can. There's the old childhood trick of simply dousing them in tea and putting them in the oven. Tarot cards? Great. Lob 'em in. Can't go wrong with tarot, and you can always use a tarot map. Thirdly, put the crap in a box. Add the dice, and shut it (perhaps even seal it). I’ve written PROPERTY OF SOLOMON on the side of mine in a marker pen, which adds to the sense of a period artefact. The point of this box is twofold – firstly, as a mood-setting object to encourage atmosphere and buy-in from the players. You’ve put this box on the table, and it adds a mood. It deliberately tries to make old RPG stuff weird. Secondly, as a divinatory device which you will interpret as you explore the fantasy world, to inspire the adventure and challenges. Or, to use more traditional RPG lingo, as your random generators. For example, you can literally randomly flick through a book from the Box of Crap and select whatever is in it. A D&D monster manual is obviously the archetypal one, but it could be anything. Children's picture books played straight can be creepy. I've used a con programme / content guide as a monster generator, for example. If you have miniatures or similar monster tokens in the Box of Crap, drawing one randomly also works. A bag full of tokens and miniatures isn't a bad

idea. You get to pull it out and be dramatic. If your players are up for boundary-pushing material – which you should check before playing – this also works well if you have the players' old RPG material. Pulling out a player's old character sheet from a previous game, and then using an awful echo of that loved character as the basis of a character can be very creepy. To stress, this is clearly extra-credit behaviour. Playing without an explicit prop will work perfectly. The Box of Crap is most used when playing with the alternate-world-generator ideas. It’s a source of objects to play with and interpret. You can also add things to the Box of Crap between sessions, if you’re feeling sneaky. In one memorable game players said they were all working in a real Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, so I quickly downloaded the restaurant’s actual menu to use as a random encounter generator. Fear The Baked Aubergine. I AM TOTALLY LOST Oh, it’s okay, Kitten. I love you. The following three set scenarios in the next section give an example of how some of the above can work. If you want a couple more worked examples, go to the essay on “Story Logic” which gives you some more advice on planning. Feel better? PURRRRRRRRR Good kitten.

DIE is also meant to intensely personalise a player’s choices, which means that a traditional scenario doesn’t really work. What follows are three examples of how, by constraining the questions at the opening, you can limit options enough so you don’t have to create something entirely on the fly, while still including a lot of space for group customisation. “Con Quest” can work well in a single session, and expand into a multi-session game. “Development Hell” includes some suggestions on how to constrain it

enough to run well in a one-off game, but is likely to be more suited to the start of a standard 2-4 session DIE game. “Christmas Knights” is a quick third scenario, written the morning before release after being urged to do so by the DIE Discord. It's less polished, but gives the core of a particularly grim Christmas adventure. Feel free to use these as templates for making your own scenarios, either to share with friends or for your own peace of mind before running a game.

DIE: CON QUEST PREPARATION As well as the usual, a convention map. If you’re at a con, use the map of the con you’re at. If you’re not, use any con map you can find and/or download. It tends to work best with a con you’ve been at, so you can easily visualise and explain it. PERSONA GENERATION Each persona will take a set role. The Master plays the Editor. • 2 players: Comic Publisher and

Writer (feel free to tweak Writer to “Cartoonist” in a two-player game).

• 3 players: add Artist. • 4 players: add Fan. • 5 players: add Journalist. Ask the below questions, in order. Skip all questions related to a persona who isn’t in the game. (i.e. in a two-player game, only ask the Publisher and Writer questions.) • Who wants to be a Writer? A

Publisher? An Artist? A Fan? A Journalist?

• Take a second and each think about that. What sort of person could that be?

• Writer – Congratulations! You’re the creator of a very successful book. What’s it called? What is <Book>’s genre?

• You’re the Publisher of <Book>. What’s the name of your company?

• How come you own the rights to <Book>, not the Writer?

• Publisher – Do you care about comics?

• Writer – What’s your greatest strength as a Writer?

• Publisher – What’s the Writer’s greatest weakness they just can’t admit?

• I used to be an Editor at <Company> working on <Book>.

• Publisher – Why did you fire me? • Publisher – So what’s the reason

we’re still in social contact and friendly?

• Writer – What was the worst thing about working with me?

• Artist – You’re the co-creator of <Book>.

• Artist – When did you quit working on <Book>… and why?

• Artist – When did your art start getting worse?

• Artist – Why have you come back for another run?

• Writer – <Book> is your big hit. Your only hit. Why?

• Fan – You’re a fan of <Book>. Why are professionals cool with you hanging with them?

• Fan – You want to work in the industry. What job do you want to do?

• <Whoever has that job> – Does the Fan have any talent in your field whatsoever?

• Fan – Who do you think is most important to the success of <Book>?

• Fan – <Writer>’s new run (with Artist). Why is it not as good as the old stuff?

• Journalist – What sort of sites do you work for? Why have you been invited to hang out with this bunch from <Company> comics?

• Publisher – Why do you hold a grudge against Journalist?

• Writer– Why do you sneakily respect this journalist?

• Fan – Why have you leaked rumours to the Journalist?

• Journalist – Why do you think <Writer> is actually just bad?

• Artist – Who was your best friend and why did you stop talking?

• <The person the artist has called out> – do you miss them?

• Around Table – Who is your hero figure?

• Around Table – Why do you think the TV show of <Book> didn’t happen?

This should give a fairly robust basis for a game of DIE. If doing a longer game, feel free to ask more questions. CHARACTER GENERATION If you’re playing at a con, the personas get together to play a game in the room you’re actually doing the game in In Real Life. If you’re not at a con, choose a room that’s a good distance away from the biggest hall in the con. The dice are distributed as so…

• Writer: Godbinder • Publisher: Neo • Artist: Emotion Knight • Fan: Fool • Journalist: Dictator

For a one-off, I’d suggest using the Light character sheets. If you want to really make the game go quickly, you can pre-generate characters with choices filled in and just hand them out. INTO DIE The players will arrive in a warped mirror-dimension version of the room they’re playing the game in. No one else is there. The windows are opaque. The colours are just off. Textures are rough. Look too long at something and you start to feel vertigo. The Editor should instantly grab the D20, and then use a Cheat Token to teleport away saying “It

worked. Meet you in <Whatever the main hall is>.” Give them a little while to get used to their situation, and then a group of Fallen enter. They’re the Big Name Creator and a group of Wannabe Hacks – writers with blades for hands. Have one Wannabe Hack for each player. If a rival creator has not turned up in the world generation, use one (or more!) of the personas’ hero figures as the inspiration for the Big Name Creator. If no other motivation has presented itself, the Big Name Creator is angry at them for plagiarising them. SACKED WRITERS’ STATS Stats: Dexterity 0 Defence: 1 Abilities: Close Combat Specialist (slicing arms, painful prose) THE BIG NAME CREATOR STATS Stats: Strength 4, Constitution 4 Dexterity 0 Defence: 2 Abilities: Every second round can vomit a flood of inky blood, which can hit anyone directly in front of them (Special: if wounded, target misses a turn.) REACHING THE MAIN HALL The players are free to explore the rest of the con – use the con map to chart the exploration. Bar being in a warped hell dimension, the biggest difference is what’s being advertised. All the exhibitions are for the film version of the <Book>. The main problem in navigating areas is that the con (and the streets around it) are filled with devoted, dead-eyed zombie-fans of the <Book>. If left to their

own devices, they try to cram their way into the main hall, forming huge crushes of bodies. If they become aware of the players, those in the locality will attempt to collect souvenirs. Like signatures, or fingernails. They are not actively hostile – they actually deeply, intensely love the players. THE FANS’ STATS Stats: Dexterity 0 Defence: 1 Abilities: Aggressive hug (Special: the Fan holds onto the player, causing a disadvantage on all actions until they’re beaten away. If a character has a number of fans equal to their strength holding on, the character suffers one wound per turn as the Fans start to affectionately tear them apart.) The encounter is simply “how to get to the main hall”. See what the players think is up. For a longer game, you use the con map as inspiration for encounters in any given area, merging it with a detail from the personas’ backgrounds to link to make it specific. Always feel free to ask further questions to get more information during play. Asking questions about specific characters from the hit book, and then immediately including it in the world, is a useful approach. For example: “You enter the cosplay area. Hmm. Writer – who’s the most popular character in the comic?” “Oh, Captain Stardust.” “The area is full near perfect Captain Stardusts. Each one has a single, uncanny error. One has no eyelashes. One casts no shadow. One has fingers at the end of their tongue. They turn to

you with angry, demanding eyes and say: which of us is the best?” THE MAIN HALL When they reach the main hall the Players will find the Editor holding off a horde of Fans who the Editor can’t quite control. Since being sacked, the Editor has had a terrible time. The comic was the highlight of their life, and this is an attempt to get the band back together. If you’re looking for a simple villain, have the Editor be a dominating monster who has brought people here to serve them in making this world right. They firmly believe that, when everyone is on their side, they’ll be able to solve this little zombie problem. Think “what’s the worst portrait of an egotistical Editor?” and go into that. If you’re looking for something more sympathetic, lean into the cry-for-help aspect of this setup. He’s sure they can make this work if they just stay here – they made such a mess of it in the real world. This version of the Master will realise that he can’t do it himself, and he needs them. If a player helps the Master, the Master can use Cheat Tokens to create a version of their shared world that is far more striking… but it should also remind the players what they’ve left behind. If they create the magical forests of their comic, have the skies above remind the artist of a trip back home with their family when they were young. If the group is having internal debates over whether to go home or not, the Master is likely to go passive – the Master will support whatever most people think. If the group is at an impasse, it’s also likely the

Master will spend Cheat Tokens to attack and kill the dissenting members. THE END GAME As per usual in DIE, ask how the experience changed them (or what their life in the fantasy world would be like) then add a grace note. If they leave, it’s likely your note will include the supernatural experience creeping into the book’s growing success in the real

world. If they stay, dwell on what they’ve left behind – perhaps most useful is the idea that in the real world the book becomes something no one cares about. Or, even worse, perhaps they make a terrible movie version. Shudder. Thanks to playtesters: Jody Houser, Amy Dallen, Sam De Leve, Jim Zub, Shaun Manning.

DIE: DEVELOPMENT HELL

PREPARATION

This scenario is primarily designed to be played online, so the player’s situation mirrors the persona’s. If you play online, the DIE site links to some useful tools for online-only play, so look there. At time of writing https://rollforyour.party is our preferred online dice table. The site also includes backdrops to add to your dice room, and links to shared online sheets you can copy to your own Google drive and share with the players.

This game is likely best in multiple sessions. If you want to run in a single session, you’ll find some advice at the end about how to cut things.

PERSONA GENERATION Explain the following to the players: You’re all on an indie game team working on the Creative Director’s masterwork. The project has been in progress for years, and the company has been in crunch (basically punishing overtime) for most of the last year and is running out of money. Many people have left the team. It’s sort of becoming an industry joke. Many people think the game won’t come out. You feel there is at least another year of development ahead of you. You’re having a video conference meeting to do a team exercise to try and increase morale – to be specific, by playing some old nineties role-playing game. Each persona will take a set role in the company. The GM will play the Creative Director, who’ll end up as The Master.

• 2 Players: Design Lead and QA [“Quality Assurance”].

• 3 Players: Add Star Coder. • 4 Players: Add Marketing. • 5 Players: Add Intern. If players are unsure what each job entails generally, explain it to them. If you don't know, Google it or ask another player to explain it. As long as you're all on the same page, it's golden. I suspect the only one which may be problematic is Quality Assurance which is basically "finding bugs in the game".

Ask the below questions, in order. Questions list who they’re to be directed at. Some questions are only asked if certain personas are in the games. Those which don’t have a specific target should be split fairly between players. You can feel free to ask certain questions to multiple players if you want to get more answers.

• Who wants to be the code lead? The

junior coder? QA? Marketing? The Intern?

Take a second and each think about that. What sort of person could that be? • What’s the genre of the game? • What are the big bugs in the game? • What’s the hold up in development? • Whose fault do you think it is? • [To everyone] Why did you take this

job? • You’re a fan of the Creative Lead.

Why do people like their games? • You think the Creative Lead is over-

rated. Why do people hate their games?

• What classic game does the Creative Lead always go on about, in terms of capturing its essence, its soul?

• [For a longer multisession game] Ask the above question to two other players.

• [To Everyone] This endless crunch is brutal. How has it negatively affected your home life?

• [Design] What are your influences as a designer?

• [Design] Design Lead is your job title. You’re not actually doing much design work. You’re really just getting people to do stuff for you. How do you feel about this?

• [Coder] You solved a huge technical problem that was holding up the game. What was it?

• [Coder] Recently, your work has fallen apart. What in your personal life has distracted you from making more progress?

• [QA] Many people in QA get into it to try and move to a different part of the company. What job has the Creative Lead promised you can move onto soon?

• [QA] You personally found a major problem in the game, and arguably saved the company. What was it?

• [QA] How did you feel when your excellence in finding this problem was rewarded by keeping you in QA?

• [Marketing/PR] What’s the worst thing you’ve done to get good coverage for the game? Are you ashamed by it?

• [Marketing/PR] Do you care about games at all?

• [Intern] How did you get a job at the company? Are you qualified for it?

• [Intern] There’s a reason why you shouldn’t be working at this company, and if it was revealed you’d be in big trouble. What is it?

• [Designer] Who are you jealous of on the team?

• [QA] Who causes most of your problems?

• [Star Coder] You are objectively hugely talented – who do you have a tendency to condescend to?

• [To Person Who They Look Down On] Do you know about this?

• [Marketing/PR] You have a secret about another team member. Which member?

• [To the person] What’s the secret? • [Intern] Who got blamed for your

biggest fuck up? What was it? Why didn’t you come clean?

• [Everyone] Everyone gets profit share on this. If the game launches and is a success, how do you see the future?

• [Everyone] Do you think the game has any chance of launch.

This should give a fairly robust basis for a game of DIE. As always, ask more questions as you wish and to pursue interesting angles.

THE MASTER’S MOTIVATION

The Creative Director wants to finish the game, and doesn’t want to live in a world where they can’t. They’re desperate enough to look for investors everywhere, and hit upon the possibility of DIE. They’re aware that this seems lunacy, but they’ll have to try it. They have come to think of the people who provided DIE to him as “Angel Investors. Or something like angels, anyway.”

They believe that by defeating the challenges that confront the game in the fantasy, they can create and live in a world where the game is finished. They are correct. This is “Let’s pivot into VR” gone diabolical.

While extreme, the Master’s level of sympathy is tweakable. Perhaps they

have a very real reason to want to finish the game quickly – terminal disease is an obvious one, but there’s lots more. However, there is megalomania at the core of it all, and their actions are deeply abusive to the staff.

Depending on the players’ answers and your instincts, there are many paths. You can play this as a genuine visionary who has lost track of the world. You can play this as a shallow parasite with no care for other humans. You can play it as Colonel Kurtz as a game dev. Have fun.

CHARACTER GENERATION Explain to the players that the Creative Director has a morale building exercise he wants everyone to be involved with. When we’re months behind schedule, they may not be impressed with this, but it’s compulsory. The Creative Lead has got everyone into the group conferencing software to have this game. The roles are distributed as so…

• Design Lead: Godbinder • QA: Emotion Knight –

specifically a Vigilance Knight • Junior Coder: Neo • Marketing: Dictator • Intern: Fool

If the Designer is particularly (ahem) dictatorial and the Marketing player is a little friendlier, you can swap their roles. INTO DIE Players arrive in a basically blank wireframe, with just the dice as the only solid objects in the universe. The Creative Lead grabs it and uses a cheat token to teleport away. From then on,

they interact as a voice of god from the sky, or pop-up text in the top right of a player’s vision. The world starts to flicker into existence – as in, a 21st century earth reality. It gets almost all the way – and then starts to visibly crash and fail. The bugs proceed to arrive, attacking the players. Use the nature of the bugs mentioned from the QA’s answers in character generation to personalise them. Have one bug for each of the players, plus one of the big crash bugs. These bugs are our Fallen. BUGS Stats: Dexterity 0 Defence: 1 Specials: Ranged Combat Specialist (blasts of bad data)

CRASH BUGS Stats: Strength 4, Constitution 4 Dexterity 0 Defence: 2 Abilities: Every second round can cause a fissure in reality, threatening to tear apart reality nearby. (Special: target suffers disadvantage on all actions for one round.)

After the bugs are defeated, reality collapses back to the wireframe. A whiteboard appears, with a message from the Creative Director. In their handwriting is written the legend…

“Genius Steals. We need to find the essence. “

And beneath it is a list of sentences, each of which refers to one of the Creative Director’s inspirations. You can also add other objectives to this board, if the personas’ backgrounds suggest them. These must all be completed to finish the mission. When each is

completed, they are erased from the board.

Present the players with a menu system in front of their eyes, which gives them the option of which of the tasks to attempt. Whenever anyone selects one, they are all transported to the relevant challenge.

If you’re playing a multiple session game, end the first session when they pick an option and find themselves transported to the game in question.

Yes, this scenario is primarily based around dropping our party into dark echoes of beloved videogames.

BUGHUNT

Each mission involves the personas being transferred into a world that is based on the game in question. If it’s a game with maps, locate the most famous one online, and use it as the inspiration for the environment they’re exploring. Their mission is to secure “The Essence”.

The best tactic is to give an open-ended objective inspired by the nature of the game they’re dropped into, and then leave the players to work out a way to achieve the goal. If they’re dropped into Mario, locating which castle the “Princess” is in may work, or if dropped into Tetris, finding a way to make the blocks “disappear”. Sometimes your players will choose a game which has a perfect in-game reason – for example, in the playtest, the game was Monkey Island – whose opening segment is about proving yourself to be a pirate. The players were dropped onto the game’s opening island and then left to work out how on earth to convince everyone they’re actually a pirate.

DIE is not necessarily a combat game. Dropping the players into Halo does not mean fighting every single inch of the game map. It is best to make sure the players know their goal in the game as soon as possible. Don’t be afraid to just tell them, in the way a videogame objective works. The flexibility and imagination in how they do it is the thing. If the game has an actual map you’re using, giving the players the map as soon as possible is a good idea. It will give them ideas for possible routes to pursue to succeed in their mission. The Neo’s AI is likely a useful source of info, or the Godbinder’s gods.

Unless all the players are extremely familiar with the game in question, be aware that specific riffs may not land. As such, lean into the general ideas of the world which people do know. Don’t be afraid to actively explain the vibe of the world – in fact, having personas who know about the world explain it to personas who don’t is a very useful tactic.

Depending on your mood, you can either have the world echo the original game’s aesthetic (as in, weird pixelated 16-bit graphic people walking around for an early 90s classic) or present it as if it’s actually real. Or both. Glitch aesthetic descriptions are likely useful.

Most of all, work echoes of a persona’s real life in to the game, as per a usual game of DIE. In our playtest, Governor Marley of Melee Island was the QA lead’s ex-husband, and was made to walk the plank off a cliff in front of a crowd of baying software pirates to prove the QA was a pirate. There’s lots of fun to riff on videogames in this scenario, but any chance to bring it back to the persona’s lives is important.

Inserting more bugs as antagonists or a lurking threat is also useful. RELEASE

After all the checklist is crossed out, reality tries to launch again… and works. The players are in a seemingly 100% accurate mirror of reality. They may see an occasional glitch, but it’s near perfect. They are outside the headquarters of their company… which is considerably fancier than in real life.

Inside they find the Master, who explains everything. Everyone has equity in the company, so we all need to vote to stay in this perfect recreation of earth. Encourage cynicism in the players regarding how “perfect” it would be. The Master will likely say any glitches are just teething problems. He clearly doesn’t quite understand how this all works, but in this new universe, the game is complete. They can all move on with their lives and bask in the glow of this huge creative success.

Of course, if they don’t all come to an agreement, the universe will crash and they’ll all die. They could all agree to go back to reality, but then the game wouldn’t be finished. We wouldn’t do that, right? Right?

This plays out like a standard DIE game, in terms of reaching agreement, one way or another. The Master will be reluctant to escalate to violence, but certainly will if it looks like agreement is impossible and reality starts to fall apart. It’s likely that some players will want to tweak the world in a significant way. Assume “enormous riches from the success of our game” is a given. Each cheat token can be used to offer one “wish” to each persona. Unless your Master is especially sympathetic, the

Master will not accept anything which stops the world being recognisably earth – art is only appreciated in its original context, so if we turn the world into a techno-utopia it misses the whole point of the endeavour.

THE END GAME

Is per standard DIE game. You will likely want to encourage one persona’s scene to talk about the actual fate of the game – was it finished? If the personas choose to stay, it’s a little unusual in that the world they’re on is basically earth. Basically. Bar the things which aren’t quite… right. Your creepy extra note is likely to underline that. “It’s a perfect life. You barely even notice the world slow down when you’re in a crowd any more. Barely.” is likely a useful angle to take. THE SINGLE GAME SESSION The game will be simplified hugely by choosing the game the Creative Director is obsessed with yourself. That means you can prep assets in advance. Instead of asking about the game’s identity, ask the players how they feel about the Creative Director’s game in questions to seed the game as a key idea. The first encounter should be simplified to a single crash bug, to introduce the mechanics and allow the players to get to the trip into the Creative Director’s inspiration game as quickly as possible. Then just ensure there’s time for the final confrontation. I’d also suggest you use the Light Character sheets. Fill in the archetypes in advance if you really want it to move. Thanks to Playtesters: David Walker, Puckett, Matt Phillips

DIE: CHRISTMAS KNIGHTS INTRO

As the Arcana was set to be released in the week of Christmas, there was talk on the DIE RPG Discord of how you’d run a Christmas game. I immediately had my core idea, and then realised I could write it up in a very brief form on Monday morning and get into the Arcana for release at noon. As such, it’s more sparse than the other scenarios here, and is written to be expanded a little by you, the brave and noble Master. It also has not been playtested at all. It is designed really for a single seasonal session, and breaks a lot of DIE’s usual story structure. PREPARATION To play as written, you will require as many D8s as there are non-GM players and at least as many different Christmas cards as there are players. Content Warning: Parent Figure Death. There are some suggestions at the end on how to run one with a less grim element at the end. PERSONA GENERATION The scenario is aggressively about a family at Christmas. It doesn’t have to be a blood family – it doesn’t necessarily need to be a family that cares about or observes Christmas, but that is the core buy-in required from the players. Before play, check if players are okay with doing a scenario with Parent Figure death in too.

Explain this to the players: you are a group of family members who have got together on Christmas Eve. The parental figure is going to run a game for them, for the first time. Ask questions to discover who is who in the family. Children. Grandparents. Spouses. Siblings. When there’s a suitable space in the relationships, insert your Master as the parental figure everyone looks up to. Ask each player why you respect or love the Master’s persona. Alternate the questions “Why have you always previously liked Christmas time?” or “Why have you always previously hated Christmas time?” around the room. Tell the players that the parental figure – the Master – is dying. Ask each player how they responded when they discovered this would be the last Christmas with this parental figure. Say that this has caused huge strain in the family. Ask each persona which other persona they’ve fallen out with? Why? When a few players have said they’d fallen out with someone, narrow the question to “Why have you fallen out with a specific non-picked persona?” to ensure each persona has beef with a different persona. At this point some players may have expressed a certain emotion on the emotion wheel strongly – anger, grief and fear are likely ones. Ask the players who you don’t connect that strongly with a single emotion whether they feel more X emotion or Y emotion and why (X

and Y being unused emotions from the wheel). Strong negative relations are also good – people who are repressing feeling a specific emotion. Ask some silly questions about who does what at Christmas and what presents they have got for folks, if any. Ask further questions until the group feels grounded enough to continue. THE MASTER’S MOTIVATION The Master is dying. They know they won’t be with the family for Christmas next year. They want to be able to go to the grave knowing the family will be okay without them – to see them pull together. It’s not just for their own peace of mind – they also want to show the family how much they need each other and can pull together. This is a story about using fantasy to prepare people for the hardships of the real world. The endgame is different from normal – do not reveal the “everyone has to agree to go home” rule, as it is not here. Regular DIE players may presume it. Others may believe this is a way to save the figure from death – this is also an idea you may wish to seed in the game, but is simply untrue. CHARACTER GENERATION All players are Emotion Knights. Fill in the emotion for each Knight, based upon which emotion was ascertained in the Persona generation. So the player who expresses anger most is the Rage Knight, and so on. Alternatively, it could be the emotion they are least capable of showing – so a character who has their anger locked down and doesn’t express any of it is the Rage Knight.

INTO DIE The players arrive in a warped version of the room they’re presently in. Resting on the nearest surface are as many unopened Christmas cards as there are players. In front of the players there are as many small prettily wrapped boxes as there are players, each with their name on. Inside each box are the players’ D8s, which transform each individual the second they touch their own dice. The Master picks up their own dice (which was resting on the table), but before they can speak a huge red dragon talon reaches from behind them pulls them through a hole in space. Writing appears on the wall in blood-red berry juice, as if written by an invisible hand: “SAVE ME.” Use the scrawled berry messages to give challenges or hints to players from this point onwards. THE CARDS After sufficient screaming, the characters now have to open their in-game cards, one at a time. When the first one is opened, pass one of the pre-prepared real-world Christmas cards and put it on the table. The whole group is transported into a different realm. When they complete the encounter, they are transformed back to the room, and can select another card. Use the card as inspiration for the encounter. Look at the imagery, subvert. Feel free to introduce other classic Christmas elements. The encounter should be about that persona’s problem with another persona, and them reaching some level of understanding or

reconciliation. Equally, as each player is connected to an emotion, the Creative Violence is a good tool for overcoming seemingly intractable difficulties. Use standard monster stats from the main manual if you need them, but hopefully you don’t. Remember to always draw from anything fun mentioned in Persona generation. The aim of each scene is emotional connection and pulling together in some way. It doesn’t have to be as simple as a cheesy reconciliation… but this is a Christmas scenario. Don’t be afraid of it either. If you want to be really fancy, in the moment before the Character Generation starts, you could take a new card, put it in an envelope, and address it to the Persona, and then pass it to the Persona’s player in question at the right moment. THE DRAGON APPEARS When all the encounters are completed, the cards magically fly up the chimney… and the house is torn apart, revealing the dragon, looming above them. Add seasonal elements to the dragon – already red, consider the greens. Consider the scenery being a forest of conifers, all decked out in lights, all on fire. This is the final encounter…. FIGHTING THE DRAGON Stats: Strength 4, Constitution 4 Defence: 2 Special: every second round it can breathe fire, attacking every person in its firing line with a 3 dice pool attack with Special (if this attack does a

wound, the target is on fire and suffers 1 wound every round until the flames are extinguished). The dragon cannot be killed until everyone has joined in the fight against it. If all the players attack simultaneously, they can add their dice pools together. (So three knights with Strength 4 each would roll 12 dice in their attack pool.) If players completely fail to get it together, the Master enters on a sleigh, dressed as Santa Claus and destroys the dragon, rising any dead players by spending Cheat Tokens. Otherwise, the Master arrives when the Dragon is defeated. The Master explains the reason for bringing them here – that they wanted to see them pull together, to know that they could live. The Master isn’t afraid of dying. They’re afraid of being away from family, and so knowing how strong they all are is a huge source of peace. If pressed on how this even works, the Master is as confused as they are. The game arrived in the post. If the players completely didn’t come together in any way, you flip the other way – as in, this was about the Master’s hope that under pressure they would come together and realise how good they are for each other. This will likely prompt some more emotional scenes too. Which leaves the question – how do we get home? The forest creatures come forth carrying tables and masses of food of every sort. The Master says: we have to finish dinner.

The family has their last Christmas together in this magical glen together. THE END GAME Afterwards, when they've returned home, ask how did the experience of that last Christmas change them, and then add a note in response as standard. TWEAKS Even when leaning seasonally sentimental, my tendency is to go with awful grim truths. You or your players may not want to go there, and I don’t blame you. If you want to tweak this to be less Oh God Parents Dying, make it be

a family that is estranged in some way, with the core question of “Why have you stopped calling your family” to each member. The game is then about the Master wanting the family to be able to come together at all. The game is written to run with Emotion Knights only to simplify things a little, as well as the pun. It should work with the other archetypes, which you can use instead if you want. Clearly the Godbinder’s gods should be based on whatever Christmas figures you like – Santa Claus, etc (Thanks, Kevin From the Discord for suggesting that.). Thanks to the DIE Discord for making me write this. Thanks a lot.

The following are write-ups of actual DIE games run by people who used the Beta. These are designed to function like the hypothetical example in the main rules, in terms of showing the sort of thought a Master applies to a group to generate an adventure. I was originally planning to write a bunch myself, then realised that…

1. Having other people do it shows a variety of different sorts of people approaching a similar problem, and showing there are many ways to do it. We can

highlight different levels of experience, different styles of GMing and so on.

2. if I pay other people to do it, it means I don’t have to write it, and I can spend more time browsing Skaven on eBay.

So I did that, though had one of my own written up anyway, just to pretend I don’t spend all my time on the aforementioned eBay browsing for the aforementioned Skaven.

But I do.

EXAMPLE GAME: "(UNFINISHED)" THE GROUP

The personas were a group of university students who played D&D to decompress during studies; all four dropped out of university for their own reasons and went on with life, largely losing touch. That was 15 years ago. One of them, (seemingly) by coincidence, runs across another at work, and suggests they sit down to catch up, offering to run the rest of their abandoned campaign so that it may finally find completion.

Theo, a Dictator Barista, studied Political Science. Wanted to change the world, but now sees politics as corrupt and literature as the only way to reach people. Writes when he's not working (mostly speculative fiction, he idolizes Harlan Ellison), but is consumed by self-doubt and hasn't finished a single thing. Asexual. Used to GM for the group. Core Drive: wants to change the world, or at least a small part of it, with his writing. Secondary Elements: grassroots activist and organizer. Loves the city park and a nearby cafe in which he writes. Never lets his inner frustrations show. Soft-spoken, approachable, and patient.

David, a Loathing Knight Bioengineering student who felt overwhelmed by his studies and his girlfriend’s (Dana's) dropping out; now a fast-order chef at a diner. Has been Dana's partner for 17 years, but they never officially married. Recently suffered a debilitating wrist injury – isn't

physically able to work and can't claim compensation. Frustrated by the situation. Used to play a Paladin. Core Drive: hates the loss of income, loss of financial security, loss of some connection with Dana, and loss of control over his arm; due to problematic parenting, believes this makes him a bad provider and lesser man. Secondary Elements: genuinely loves Dana. Essentially an optimist underneath all that bitterness and resentment. Gamer, and competitive about it.

Dana, a Fool Studied Art History and was top of her class, dropped out because she felt trapped and wanted life to be simpler and to have more freedom. While David was working, they had enough to live well; with his current condition, she's had to find a job – waitstaff at a local bar. She's not thrilled about it, but works hard. David is distrustful of the clientele and the friends she might make there, and she's growing slightly distant in instinctual response to his negativity. Used to play a Druid. Core Drive: to find elements of freedom and joy in her life and not be tied down. Secondary Elements: also genuinely loves David. Also an optimist, with her heart on her sleeve. Also a gamer, but a casual one. Still draws and paints in her off hours. Wants David to work through his baggage.

Ben, a Master Studied Classics, and is the only one of the group to return to studying, eventually earning a degree and becoming a therapist. Had an existential crisis when a patient who was making a lot of progress was killed in a car accident immediately following a session. Ben feels that everything he (or anyone else) can do to make the world a better place is inevitably undone by entropy. He didn’t give into the temptation of self-serving nihilism, mostly because he gave into the temptation of DIE instead. Gay, aromantic, single. Used to play a Sorcerer. Core Drive: to create a better world where entropy has no hold. Secondary Elements: wants to be in the company of people who understand him. Wants to be understood, full stop. Loves museums. Still loves tabletop games. Has a need to be in control but would never admit just how deep that need really goes, not even to himself.

Assigning the Knight and the Fool to David and Dana respectively felt very natural – David is in a very emotionally overwhelmed state, he has a lot of emotions to purge and work through, so this fitted him well; Dana wants to have as much freedom as possible, and the Fool, depending on how one is to play the Fool, can be that. To have the Fool be the ultimate blessing to a character (Dana was thrilled to get to play the part) was wonderful to see.

Theo was more difficult. I had considered giving him Godbinder, due to his political interests. He doesn’t want to force people to do things, he wants to

inspire and have conversations. I went with Dictator for two reasons:

1. In character, Ben wants to tempt

Theo and has misjudged him. He thought Theo would enjoy having the direct power to change people’s behaviour. If he’d known Theo better, he would’ve given him Godbinder – but like anyone, Ben is flawed, he’s made a mistake here.

2. Out of character, I was concerned that adding the gods would make Ben’s world, its near-emptiness being one of its defining features, feel less abandoned – and that playing the gods as NPCs might take too much attention away from David and Dana, and make their players (both relatively new to tabletop RPGs) feel sidelined. I was also interested in seeing how a person who doesn’t want to exact such control over other people would respond to being given the powers of the Dictator – do they change their mind once they see the results, or do they double down on their morals?

THE PREP

Prep was interesting – the focus was more on the atmosphere and experience of playing the game than about preparing stats, maps, and so on. It was an exercise of learning and leaning into my strengths.

In the past, every time that I’ve run games with a lot of narrative and NPC preparation, the preparation didn’t survive the first encounter with the players and went out the window; yet every time I’ve run games entirely improvisationally, I tripped over small problems and had nothing to fall back

on. For this campaign, I found a fairly good balance between the two.

After persona generation – which was impromptu, but the spontaneity created really rich characters, nobody was caught overthinking things – I jotted down certain key points that helped shape setting. Persona generation was always going to be my starting point for ideas; after all, this story is about these characters. All four studied in intellectual and cultural fields, all four were used to paper as a part of their joined lives (university work, exams, character sheets, the university degrees they never received, Theo’s writing, Dana’s sketchbook, Ben’s notepad, and so on) and with that in mind, I started preparing ideas for a world in which the look of the Fallen and the imagery of the world inevitably keeps returning to a motif of paper. By simply asking who Dana’s favourite artist is (Dalí), I immediately had a wonderful catalogue of ideas of things to put into the game. There were a few paintings my mind immediately went to that were well-known enough but not quite as overused as The Persistence of Memory. I let some other surrealistic art influence the atmosphere as well, David Lynch in particular.

I purposely didn’t draw up maps. One of the personas’ shared problems is a lack of direction and connection, leading them into distancing themselves. To convey some of that emotional disorientation, I wanted to take away their ability to see concretely where they were in relation to anything else, at least initially. For one later scene that was a bit more contained, the only one that was, I did draw out a small room layout, but did it freehand during the game – I wanted the players to feel like they hadn’t arrived at the room because

I had pushed them there, like I had prepared a map and they were inevitably going to end up in this place, but to feel that their actions and emotional responses had brought them there. (The Die world can be very mapped and defined, such as in the comic itself, but Ben doesn’t think or visualise as spatially as Sol does, and doesn’t do as much worldbuilding, he wants to leave that to his friends.)

I reserved a private room for the game so it would just be the players in a closed, almost isolated location. I prepared a number of playlists; mostly scores and other music without vocals. A few songs were specifically marked for certain story beats I wanted to hit, and would be looped during those scenes if necessary. I prepared some snacks, not wanting a tense or emotional scene to be interrupted by rustling of wrappers.

The table I left almost entirely empty – none of the usual gaming mats, no papers, just the Box and the character sheets. I wanted the immediate impression to be a sense of: “this isn’t like a game you’ve played before. We start this from a clean slate and add onto it as we go.” This worked tremendously to raise interest immediately. Walking in on a room without any of the usual reference books, map scrolls, miniatures, dice, etcetera, in it – and specifically a room that contained simply one table and four chairs – drew looks of curiosity. It also made walking into the room in character as our personas much easier – it seemed like a reasonable set-up for a get-together. It worked wonderfully – the moment the door closed, we fell effortlessly into character as our personas.

Although not a lot was on the table to begin with, I had, of course, some props. This was the majority of my prep work, really. I wanted to do prep work that adds a sense of tangibility to the world and a sense of mysticism to the game. I brought in a book on Dalí with pages marked for references when the players encountered visuals from his paintings; I tweaked Ben’s character and motivations to be Ellisonesque in a way, to create a further tie with Theo.

There are elements to Ben that are lifted, to some extent, from the personality of AM, the antagonist in Ellison’s infamous I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream – like AM, he can build his own world, but wants to bring people there and keep them there. AM’s motives are far more twisted, but Ben’s are selfish in their own way. Speaking of, Ben’s motivation was easy to arrive at, I suspect his horror of realizing the limits of his abilities and the crushing reality of the world is something that strikes quite a few people eventually. This way I also arrived at creating a Master who is, as a person, sympathetic, but by what he puts his friends through without their consent (and without a second thought), is still both disturbed and disturbing.

As mentioned, there was a low-volume soundtrack throughout; during the early scenes, it looped the tango from the score of Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou. Other parts of the game would have other musical cues that were equally fitting. Sometimes (as in the case of the tango) the players didn’t know the idea behind the musical choice, which actually helped make the scenery more disjointed and unsettling. The final scene was set to versions of Ravel’s Boléro, and worked wonderfully. It has this terrific rhythm of escalation, and

Ravel is believed to have had an existing cerebral condition that led to the experimental composition of the piece; a good theme for Ben during his final moments confronting the party as he struggles with his own world and realities.

In loose preparation prior to the day of the game, I determined certain beats that, one way or another, had to happen – Dana had to help David at an inopportune time and steal his thunder so that she could get him to understand that her helping him is nothing to be frustrated or childish over, that it comes from a place of love; Theo had to be faced with a crowd of people who expected him to impart his wisdom, only to realize that he doesn’t have all the answers he thought he did, and that nobody does. I had some thoughts for potential scenes to communicate this and had written down possible scenarios, then during the game, picked the ones that seemed appropriate based on the actions of the players. It helped to have ideas at the ready but to also be fluid in which ones to choose. This took the shape of a few index cards with bullet points, keywords, and small and simple “if (x) then (y)” reminders.

I’m a performer and do my share of acting; the other players don’t, but creating mannerisms and a separate voice for Ben helped me as a GM nudge the players into accepting their personas more. This isn’t strictly necessary, but any basic book on acting from a local library can give you some pointers.

And then we get to the good stuff – the Box. It’s a cheap wooden box painted to look a bit distressed and more mystical. Contained within were a few things – a dragon miniature, an origami crane,

tarot cards, a black feather and a white one, a small D6, a necklace with a sigil pendant, a pearl, a piece of driftwood, a large pebble, a few plastic toys, all sorts of things. I put it on the table and made no comment on it. When asked about it, I kept my answers playfully unhelpful. I wanted the players to be desperate to know what it is without frustrating them, and I think I succeeded.

I specifically bought single dice at the shop we were playing in – dice I knew the players would like the looks of, each a different design – though slightly tellingly, David’s and Dana’s had the numbers written in the same gold colour. These personas, like anyone, are separate people, but ultimately linked, and I wanted even the dice to reflect it.

Pictured: a mock-up reconstruction of Sebastian’s Box of Crap. Sebastian would like to stress that the unpainted dragon is not because he doesn’t paint his minis, but because he’s a little intimidated to start the fearsome beast. I believe this is because of some colours are hard to paint rather than just being scared of the mini. Oh – and the antlers were found when hiking.

HOW THE GAME WENT

The three friends traversed empty landscapes, saw strange paintings come to life, and fought Fallen origami monsters. Theo and David got over their issues and, wanting to return home, more or less forced Ben to agree at gunpoint. Theo, David, and Dana got their somewhat happy endings; Ben suffered another breakdown and admitted himself to a mental health ward where (of course) some patients were playing D&D and invited him to join. We left him – and the story – before he decided.

The game went very well, the balance between planning and (somewhat guided) improvisation went very smoothly. The effort toward some cryptic elements in the presentation kept the players interested and, later, satisfied. I kept the Fallen and other challenges minimally underpowered – Ben wanted to create a world in which Theo, Dana and David felt powerful and wouldn’t be seriously hurt. It also helped the encounters flow and to keep the players not just feeling satisfied, but encouraged to progress. After stepping away from the game and the personas, talking things over, there was a lot of positive feedback about the game having succeeded in being different in tone and approach to the nature of D&D, but celebratory and cathartic in spirit.

BIO

Sebastian is a gay transman who returned to art, tabletop gaming, writing, and performance after failing at and giving up on maintaining a respectable life and sensible career. He’s on Twitter at @sebastianmorden.

EXAMPLE GAME: DEATH OF THE FAEWILDS THE GROUP In high school they played D&D together, but an argument kept them from getting together for the final session. Years later, their GM dies unexpectedly. Reports say it was suicide, but details of the investigation have more meaning for the former D&D group. They’re all brought back together at their ten-year high school reunion, to play that final game. Holly, Dictator As a teen: defined by her relationship to the group’s GM, Damien. Childhood best friends with Glen. She’s controlling and quick to write people off. Things have to go her way. A big fight she started with Erin kept the group from finishing their final game. As an adult: studied psychology. Had big wedding to Damien, and an even bigger divorce. Six months later, he dies. Used to play a custom Knight / Spellcaster class, created by Damien. Glen makes her the Dictator because of her control issues.

Avery, Fear Knight As a teen: daughter of the school principal. Tells her parents she’s in a study group when she’s really playing D&D. Her parents discover the lie, and ground her, right before the final game session. As an adult: med school dropout, hiding this fact from her parents. Moved away and is only back for the reunion.

Used to play a broody Dragonborn fighter. Glen makes her the Emotion Knight because of her anxieties.

Erin, Fool As a teen: a bit of a troublemaker who hung out with the wrong crowd. Uses humour to cover anxieties. Stole a fancy D20 from Damien, which sparked a fight with Holly, causing their last game session to be cancelled. As an adult: after Damien and Holly’s divorce, she and Damien reconnect and start sleeping together. She returns his D20 to him, which is later found at the scene of his death. Used to play a custom Shapeshifter class. Glen makes her the Fool because of her tendency to cause problems.

Glen, Master As a teen: childhood friends with Holly. Hung around her and Damien in school. Had eyes for Damien, but didn’t act on his feelings out of respect for Holly. However, Damien attempted to cheat on Holly with Glen, a fact which Glen has been hiding from Holly. As an adult: teaches English Lit at the local high school. Hosts an actual play podcast he’s trying to get off the ground. Used to play a Wizard. Glen makes himself Master, with the Rules of Dreams archetype

THE PREP This game was recorded as an actual play podcast. The four of us do not live in close proximity, and we expected to only have one day to play this game in person. I went into it with the assumption that we would be able to complete the entire game in one sitting. After getting through the opening encounter, it became obvious that we would not have time to finish, so the rest of the game was recorded over four more sessions. We stuck mostly to the structure of my initial outline, although many of the details changed as the plot solidified. Each persona’s central conflict seemed to be centred on unresolved events from high school. Holly and Damien’s relationship, Erin and Holly’s fight, Avery’s absence at a critical moment, and Glen’s secret knowledge about Damien’s cheating. These aren’t strictly core drives; Glen is the only one who really wants to address these issues. The game ended up being less about tempting the personas to stay in the game world, and more about the group working through teenage melodrama that bled into their adult lives. Additionally, the murder mystery presented a bit of a problem for me. It was established as a mystery, but the suspicious element of the crime scene (the presence of Damien’s special D20) was easily explained away by Erin and Damien’s brief relationship before his death. I decided that the mystery itself was really only in Glen’s mind, which gave him a motivation: to find out if one of his friends had killed his crush. I didn’t want Glen to just disappear as soon as the group arrived in the world. He wants to find out what happened to

Damien, and needs to be present, but having him be a part of the group was also a problem. So instead of teleporting away, he made himself appear to be in a magical coma, which also meant the group needed to find out how to heal him, and became a motivation for them to start working together. The game itself had to force the personas to confront their own actions as teens. The easiest way to do this was to allow the players’ personas to act as echoes of their teenage selves. The story made the personas meet each of their former characters in turn, to see how unresolved issues had hurt them. Each character also had a key piece of info the players needed to learn. • Holly’s character is the Queen of the

Fae. She’s now in a position that gives her authority and control. Additionally, she is about to marry a character that looks exactly like Damien. She knows how the players can return home.

• Avery’s character is the Exile, who believes that her self-imposed exile is protecting the world from the Blue Spirit. Avery was grounded right before the final game session and Holly/Erin’s big fight, so the Exile is locked in a cage inside a copy of Avery’s childhood home. The Exile knows that the world is real and that the players must choose between the game and the real world.

• Erin’s character is the Shapeshifter, a figure that leads a gang of thieves. They steal more to mess with people than for any real gain. Their headquarters is also in the facsimile of Avery’s childhood home (where the Exile lives). The Shapeshifter knows that the world is unstable as long as the players haven’t made their decision.

• Glen’s character is the Secret Keeper, who died in the intervening years. Comparatively little is known about him.

These characters’ appearances served as encounters, although there was a distinct possibility that none of these would turn towards combat, so I included a couple of additional combat challenges to allow the players opportunities to use their abilities, get a sense for how cool they could be in this world, and to lead them towards the encounters with their former characters. The instability of the world was also an echo of their past. The big bad of their game, the Blue Spirit, (a threat they never actually saw and never defeated) made for a good option. Initially I planned to have the Blue Spirit appear in the final scene, providing a big climactic fight that the players could choose to participate in if their persona decided to stay in the world. However, before the last session of the game I realized I could make the Secret Keeper have been the Blue Spirit all along, a plan that Glen and Damien could have come up with together, and another secret that Glen’s been holding onto for all these years. If the players decided to leave, the threat would never appear, and if they decided to stay, the Blue Spirit would rear its head, because Glen is back in the world. It felt more appropriate to the tone of the game to keep the climax personal, stripped of magic, just an argument between friends who were once close. Eventually, all roads needed to lead back to Damien, so the final encounter took place at the wedding of the Queen to her Damien proxy. Once the players “healed” Glen, he could be left to

“recover” while the players attended the wedding. This gave them a chance to play dress up, and have a moment to interact with some key NPCs. Here I seeded some temptations for each player, and had Holly interact with fake-Damien. He made some advances toward Holly, foreshadowing the later reveal of Damien’s cheating. Once the players had sufficient interaction, Glen made his move, knocking out the wedding guests and disguising himself as Damien, in an attempt to shock the personas into confessing. I had decided that, however this confrontation went, Glen could reveal himself, and the rest would be up to the players. HOW THE GAME WENT Interactions with their former characters helped Holly, Erin, and Avery work through some issues in their relationships before the wedding. Glen’s appearance as Damien and the eventual reveal of all of Glen’s manipulations turned out to be less confrontational than expected. No blows were traded, I never spent a Cheat Token. I tried to tempt Holly into using her Voice to make Glen want to leave, but the argument between Holly and Glen provided more compelling roleplay opportunities, and became the emotional climax of the game regardless. Much of the game was designed to get the players to work through their personas’ issues, and come through the other side. Staying in the world was always an option, but not really a success state for the players. Additionally, since the players chose to resolve their issues, everyone was on the same page about leaving. Once Glen was convinced, I gave the personas time to say goodbye to their old characters and new friends, before

ending the game on a slightly upbeat note. BIO Drew Wills (Glen) and Gen Ainslow (Holly) are the co-hosts of DIE-

COMPRESSED, a podcast about all things DIE. Death of the Faewilds was recorded as an actual play podcast on the same feed, which can be found here: die-compressed.libsyn.com. They are also on twitter at @DIEcompressed.

EXAMPLE GAME: GIRL GROUP THE GROUP

I had a table consisting entirely of trans/nonbinary people, 4/5 of us on the femme side of things. Because most of my gaming groups for the past few years have been predominantly women (and I don’t think I’ve ever run with less than two people who would have described themselves as women at the time), I was interested in exploring this side of RPG culture. So I proposed an all-girl gaming group from college reuniting as adults. The players decided they played a steampunk noir version of White Wolf’s Changeling: The Dreaming, and so off we went.

Marc, a Dictator Transitioned shortly after college. High school guidance counsellor with a kid, to whom he’s a loving and devoted single father. He came from money, but they took his transition poorly and he hasn’t spoken to them in a few years. He played a goat pooka named Philip. He volunteers at the library, and likes to read nonfiction. The guidance counsellor bit made the Dictator feel appropriate, and the player was a rape survivor so I trusted him with the nuances.

Alice, a Fool A paleoarcheology major who struggled with the sexism of the field and so became an extremely scammy consultant, in marked contrast to her extremely earnest college self. Terrible taste, a massive crush on Grimes, and a “drug aficionado.” Played a thinly veiled

Sherlock Holmes clone named Ada. Is painfully straight. The way the persona had gone from earnestness to scam artist made the Fool feel perfect.

Amy, a Vigilance Knight An academically diligent type who went on to grad school en route to becoming a sociology professor. Generally unsatisfied with the academic life, which she nevertheless devotes her whole self to. Played a femme fatale type in their old game. Has a gardening hobby. The straightforward nature of the character seemed perfect for the Knight.

Claire, a Godbinder Worked at the gaming store where the group played. She was pre-law in college, but bombed her LSAT and didn’t get into law school, and so is still managing the store. Used to date Amy, but they broke up after college. GMed the game, but had a favourite NPC, a wisecracking Jean Harlow type club owner. Very into Irish folk music. With only the Neo and the Godbinder left, I went with Godbinder, as turning a store manager into a god manager made me smile.

Rachel, a Master Women’s studies major. Was a super woke neopagan goth, but has settled into being a housewife, which she regrets terribly. She wants to get the gang back together and into a world that’s much more interesting than the bland oblivion of adulthood. Unrequited crush on Marc from college.

THE PREP

During character creation, tensions immediately flared between Rachel and Claire. This wasn’t super written into their backstories, but it emerged organically so I went with it and immediately started ramping up Rachel’s condescension towards Claire. Then, during the initial Fallen attack, Claire made a bad call and got reduced to zero hit dice. Alice jumped in to try to save her, freely admitting she didn’t know what she was doing, and then critically failed it. Marc intervened and Dictatored Claire not to eat anybody, but this was still an obvious and early concern.

So when I sat down to prepare the second session, I knew that dealing with Claire was a priority. Her death was at least partly down to adapting to a new system, and so I wanted to give her a second chance. Also, I recognized that having Marc’s D4 tied up like that was an interesting pressure point – there was a lot of available drama in setting up situations that could most easily be resolved with the D4 and letting Marc sweat whether or not to risk taking Claire off the leash.

The risk of this, of course, was that Marc would likely die in the course of resurrecting Claire. But how would Rachel feel about this? Obviously Claire could get fucked as far as she was concerned, but having people die got in the way of her big desire to get everyone back together again. So fine, as soon as I had someone other than Claire be Fallen I could have Rachel burn a Cheat Token to fix it.

It was here that I got one of those ideas that makes you stop short. If Rachel wanted everything back the way it was and was going to burn a Cheat Token resurrecting Marc, wouldn’t she prefer to bring him back as the girl she had a crush on? It was a horrifying idea. But it fit. Marc’s player was a trans dude as well, and the persona was designed in part around the idea of playing with his own complex relationship with the feminist spaces of his adolescence and early adulthood. It was, in other words, an interesting horror, as opposed to something showy and traumatic for the sake of it. So I asked him if he’d be game for it. He was, so I decided to put it in as a possibility.

I want to stop for a moment and say that this was an extremely high-risk decision. It would have been completely inappropriate of me to even try it without pre-clearing it with Marc’s player. I was prepared to have it X-Carded by one of the other players if they found it too triggering. Even with these practical considerations, which I should stress are the bare minimum if you’re going to pull something like this, it would have been utterly inappropriate for me to even consider it if I weren’t an experienced GM who was myself trans and running a game for a predominantly trans group all of whom I was good friends with. Extreme content like this can work amazingly—the detransition reveal was probably the most successful and impactful beat of the game—but it can also go ruinously badly. Be extremely careful, and make 100% sure that you’re the right GM playing with the right group before you poke a major trauma in the eye like this.

So I had some major plot beats. What I didn’t have yet was a framework for them. So, on the one hand I had a theme of losing the glamour and magic of the old gaming group. On the other, I had a steampunk noir Chicago setting. That lent itself well to a sort of “last party as the end closes in” vibe. There’d been a mention of the group as working class students at a very preppy liberal arts college, so I knocked together a gang called the Silver WASPs that were about to storm the city.

I knew I wanted to use Claire’s old NPC and the bar. Since Claire’s core drive was obviously being stuck in her dead-end job and having failed at her ambitions, I decided Violet should have been bought out and now stuck behind the bar while the guy who proctored Claire’s LSAT ran the place. That seemed a good first encounter – the players had reason to go there, and going to the bar to get information is a classic.

For a second set piece, I figured I should do something to bring Amy and Alice into things. Amy hadn’t given me a ton to work with, but I had gardening. There’s a botanical garden near me that has a couple of corpse flowers that they hold parties for the opening of, so that sprung to mind as a possible setting, with the corpse flower being a viable McGuffin to offer a resurrection if that was still needed. (If not, I'd just wave my hands vaguely and mutter something about people with information about the Silver wasps.) And I liked the idea of a Grimes-like figure holding a ridiculously luxurious gala full of eye-candy men that she could offer to Alice. This would also entice her for the eventual “don’t

you want to stay here” pitch from Rachel.

From there I figured I should pay off the threat closing in, so I’d have the Silver Wasps storm the party and take hostages, one of whom would be a dead ringer for Marc’s son, giving him a big encounter. Better yet, I could have the leaders of the gang look like his parents. I figured that would be the big climactic set piece, and that Rachel could make her reappearance in the middle of it to kick off the endgame.

That seemed like enough to go on. Encounters that would mean something to each of the players, a pair of plot threads that could motivate them, and a couple ideas for big dramatic beats. Time to actually run this thing.

HOW THE GAME WENT

The Claire/Marc explosion managed to happen over getting a free ride from a taxi driver, which was hilariously small stakes, but hey, it’s always nice when you have multiple character fatalities in an effort to avoid a two-hour walk. Other than that, things mostly went smoothly and according to plan until the end, where Claire burnt a major miracle to just incinerate the Silver Wasps, bringing an abrupt end to my third encounter. We were running a bit over time at that point anyway, and Marc had gotten a lot of plot with the tension of controlling Fallen Claire, so I decided to have Rachel show up, perversely enthusing about how much fun this was, and try to make the sale. (Having her apologize and fix Marc to sweeten the pot a bit.) Unsurprisingly the players weren’t having it, so she flew up into the air

and summoned an undead Al Capone riding a giant steampunk tank as a final encounter. This resulted in a more combat heavy ending than I’d been anticipating, but it worked as a leadup to the party making amends with a broken and defeated Rachel and everybody going home.

BIO

Elizabeth Sandifer got into RPGs because they were what all the cute boys in trench coats were doing in high school. She’s the author of The Last War in Albion, a saga of magical warfare and British comic books, and of Neoreaction a Basilisk, a work of horror philosophy about Nazis. She blogs at eruditorumpress.com.

EXAMPLE GAME: “REPENT, HARLEQUIN!” AND THE HOUSE OF MONTMARTE THE GROUP They used to be in an art rock band in high school (“Repent, Harlequin!”) and would play a Vampire-the-Masquerade-style RPG (The House of Montmartre) after band practice. The band broke up near graduation when the youngest member of the group died (Doug’s brother, Peter). They went their separate ways and have been mostly out of touch for the past 15 years. Doug is getting married and decides to have the wedding back in his hometown. The group agrees to get together for one last game at the local bar. Kath, a Neo named Vox • Played bass and sang. • Wanted to be a pro skater. • Favourite band is Paramore. • Hates Twilight but loves Anne Rice. • Now works at a local pub, the Wild

Goose, and has worked there for years.

• Still skates. • Plays in a band, Lucille Baller

(sounds like Best Coast). • Lives with bandmates. • Sleeps around. • Has HPV. • Wiccan. • Thinks of life as a joke. • Core Drive: to have a good time.

Doesn’t want to commit to anything or admit time is passing by.

Doug, a Godbinder named Sir Ashley Burr Strathclyde • Used to play drums in the band. • Old character was a Warlock named

Decarabia.

• Wild partier, insecure, in the closet. • Loves hardcore and punk music. • Younger brother, Peter, died and this

sent him into a downward spiral. • He left the band and hit rock bottom. • Now he’s sober, living in NY, and

working as an actuary. • In a controlling relationship with his

fiancé, Angus. • Core Drive: to be “normal.” To stay in

control. Kennedy, a Dictator named Marissa Llewellyn • Played keyboard, sang. • Used to be the GM. • Named the band after a Harlan

Ellison story. • Pushed weird outfits. • Theatre geek. • Uninterested parents. • Felt misunderstood. • Sees self as radical, an activist, and

too cool for everyone. • Loves sci-fi, gothic literature, and

Lord Byron. • Idolizes Bjork. • Now she works for a small theatre

company and plays in a band, Mary Shelley Duvall – theatrical pop.

• Core Drive: to be special, important. Wants to be understood.

Angie Brenner, a Fool named Ray • Played flute. • Use to play a sorcerer, Astraia. • Got good grades. • Dated Doug in secret. • Never fell in love again after their

breakup. • Rivalry with Kennedy. • Loves Twilight, K-pop.

• Now plays flute in the SF symphony, performing Carmen.

• Parents see as failure because she’s not a doctor or married with children.

• Depressed. Lost in life but pretends it’s going great.

• Core Drive: to find something she’s passionate about.

Ro, A Master called The Portal • Played guitar. • Was best friends with Doug when

they were kids. • Super nerdy and awkward in school. • Got As in Math and Band and failed

all else. • Tried to keep the group from

breaking up. • Cut off contact after the breakup. • After high school Ro became famous

for a short time for the musical project, The Portal – psychedelic, guitar shredding based on mathematical equations.

• Became more and more “out there” as a celebrity, then disappeared.

• Most people assume Ro died. • Core Drive: to be truly seen. To live in

a world with a chosen family. To make all their dreams come true so they want to stay.

One of the players Skyped in to play, so I picked the classes for everyone beforehand. That way he could print out his character sheet before the first session. I chose the classes based on what I thought the player would like playing most. • One player is studying to be a

computer programmer and loves animals, so I gave her the Neo. One player loves making up intricate details about the lore of his characters, so I gave him the Godbinder.

• One player has the best sense of humour and loves making jokes in RPGs, so I gave her the Fool.

• One player loves storytelling and appreciates the power of story. He is a huge fan of DIE, the comic, and would enjoy playing the class of the main character, so I made him the Dictator

Ironically, a couple of the players ended up making personas that were basically opposite their class personalities. The player I gave the Fool ended up breaking from her usual and making a super serious persona. The player I gave the Neo made someone who was carefree and reckless, a perfect match for the Fool. The player with the Godbinder made a persona with a history of addiction, so that would have fit the Neo. But I decided not to switch any classes around, and I think this added some interesting tension. The group steps out of my spooky bedroom after fighting some fallen, and into the vampire world of their RPG from high school; the grey, gothic grounds of a classic manor house. This gave a lot of possible locations for encounters – the gatehouse, mansion, gardens, orchards, rectory and chapel. The personas all liked different styles of vampire/gothic, so there was a lot of content to pull from – the Brontës’ moors, the ballroom from Interview With a Vampire, villains and heroes based on the characters from Twilight. The group encounters two vampire clans at war, one good, one evil, battling for control of the manor. THE PREP A lot of the information the players gave about their personas was about bands they like and bands they played in, so I

got the idea to create a secret playlist. A lot of my prep time was spent finding songs for each encounter, then I wrote in my notes when to play each track. I filled in the playlist by asking players more music-based questions like, “Was there any type of music your persona used to listen to a lot?” and “What does your persona’s current band sound like?” Ro is obsessed with patterns and they try to control other people to cope with their fears. Their motivation is to live in a world where they think they can indulge these obsessions and manipulate their surroundings without consequences, like in their old high school RPG. Ro never felt like anyone saw them for who they really were, except during their games. They didn’t realize they could be accepted in real life, so they are trying to stay in the game forever with their chosen family. The encounters are meant either to make the group’s real lives seem terrible or to make this world seem as wonderful as possible. The basic idea of encounters and locations: 1. Briefing from a likable character who

introduces them to the “good” vampire clan, Skate Coven – mansion ballroom

2. Encounter with a monster – gardens 3. Encounter with old characters –

chapel 4. Encounter with “bad” vampire clan,

the Mortavi – orchards 5. Find the Oracle who gives them a key

to discovering the secret base – moors

6. Encounter with the Mortavi leaders – secret room in the mansion

7. Final encounter with the Master – rooftop of the mansion.

All the personas are musicians and have a desire for recognition, so I wanted to have the group be famous and adored here. There was a prophecy by the Oracle that foretold the group would come and save Skate Coven. The coven was excitedly waiting for their heroes to arrive, and begged them to perform. Kath still has the same lifestyle she had in high school. She doesn’t want to grow up, so I wanted to give her the opportunity to stay in her teenage fantasy. The group met Hayley Williams, singer of Kath’s favourite band, and she debriefed the group. I also made Hayley a bard so I had a reason to play the first track of the playlist. Kath is a Wiccan, and a skater. I thought a whole community of people like her would be very appealing, and might even make her real life of one-night stands seem shallow. I named the “good” vampire clan Skate Coven. In place of a garden, there’s a skate park, and I planned for Hayley to tempt Kath to stay by asking her to join their coven. Kath has been at the same low-level bar job for years, so I wanted to represent the bar and the drudgery of her real life, which is going nowhere. I made the monster a giant robotic wild goose that plays Best Coast. I think Kath’s carefree attitude is covering up her deep fear of death. I thought if she saw someone she cared about die, it might force her to confront her fears or create some interesting character transformation. Hayley was kidnapped by the Mortavi (they looked like the group’s high school bullies) and fatally wounded in front of the group. The group was forced to participate in the next part of the adventure of this

world if they wanted to save their new friend. Doug has little joy and excitement in his real life, so I thought I’d give him some opportunities to connect with these suppressed emotions. I wanted to tempt him to return to his partier ways, so I made the ballroom encounter a cross between the dinner party from Interview With a Vampire and the rave from Blade. But I also wanted Doug to have the option to connect with something really positive, so I planned on asking during the session if there’s anything he used to really enjoy when he was young, then added that activity to the party (traditional Japanese drums). Ro thinks Doug’s marriage is a big mistake, so I wanted to give Doug a dark vision of how terrible marriage could be. The group met Doug’s old character, Decarabia, in an unhappy marriage to a troll, surrounded by dozens of crying babies. Decarabia was forbidden from going on any more adventures, so he uses his wand to flick the fireplace on and off like a television, while ‘Guillotine’ by Death Grips angstily plays in the background. I also thought Doug might prefer to live in a reality where he never had to grieve his brother’s death, so I brought Peter into this world as his old cleric character. He is happy, healthy, and has a good life here. He also has the power to heal, so the group has to go to him if they want to save Hayley. Kennedy used to make decisions for the direction of the band, she was their old GM, and she has a creative job in her real life. I wanted to tempt her with full creative control in this fantasy world, and appeal to her huge ego. I made the entire moors area a theatrical

production space, run by the Oracle (Bjork) and her assistant (Lord Byron). After Lord Byron gives the group a tour, he tells Kennedy she is the only one worthy enough to take the honoured place of Bjork as the new oracle. I made Bjork’s glowing crown the key to discovering the location of the secret base. Kennedy’s core drive is to be understood. I wanted to add a detail from her more obscure interests, so she would feel like this world really gets her. I skimmed the Harlan Ellison story Kennedy named the band after for something I could put in this world that the other personas wouldn’t know about. Then I had Lord Byron ask the group to play as a test of their worthiness, and the audience threw jellybeans onto the stage. I wanted to give Angie an opportunity to feel worthy and a sense of meaning in this world, so I made her old character, Astraia, into a martyr here. She was the coven’s beloved leader who sadly died in battle. The group sees a huge shrine around a portrait of Astraia (who looks like Bella Swan). The coven senses a similarity in Angie and tempts her with this meaningful role. Angie loves cheesy romances, but doesn’t have any romance in her real life, so I thought I’d tempt her with a passionate love interest. the group encounters Edward, who woos Angie while Thousand Years by Christina Perri (from Twilight soundtrack) plays in the background. Angie’s parents never thought anything she did was good enough, so I wanted to have an opportunity for Angie’s skills to be recognized. I made the final puzzle something she could solve. I made the

sheet music for the Habenera the passcode to open the door to the Mortavi base. Finally, I wanted to give Angie a chance to have a cathartic confrontation with her perfectionist parents while ‘Kill This Love’ by BlackPink plays in the background. So I made her parents the leaders of the Mortavi. They looked like the villains from Twilight. Ro’s core drive is to be seen for who they are and accepted by their chosen family. They don’t realize they can have this in the real world, so I wanted to choose spells that would make the other personas see the real world in the negative way that Ro sees it. I made Ro a Master of Dreams and planned dark visions of the persona’s futures in the real world. Angie as the surgeon her parents wanted her to be, operating on herself. Kath sees her old and warty reflection. After Ro explains who they are and why they want to stay, I suspect my players will want to try to find a peaceful resolution, and I want to give them the chance to do so. So I planned on reminding them they could combine persuasion checks with each other. I brought back all the sympathetic characters (Edward, Lord Byron, Peter, and Hayley) in a final attempt to convince everyone to stay, so the group could even add in rolls from sympathetic NPCs. I wanted the group to feel like they had to come to agreement quickly, so I created a big, gothic storm to show the world was ending. Every time the lightening flashed, the cliffs with the raging sea breaking against them appeared closer and closer.

I added basic stats from the manual and tweaked them a bit as the group went along. HOW THE GAME WENT This was my first time as a GM, so I was learning what worked well for DIE, but also how I would run any game next time. This all ended up playing more like an adventure game than an open world RPG, so I kept checking in with everyone to make sure they weren’t feeling to railroaded. They all were down for puzzle-focused encounters. The game ended up lasting four sessions and the players would have been happy to keep going for even longer. Everyone had their personas make up names for their characters. I thought this might get confusing, but it actually worked well. It didn’t really add to the story, but it was an interesting way for me to gauge how much the persona was identifying with this world. When Angie started introducing herself as Ray, it felt like she was embracing the fantasy. I was certain my awesome encounters would convince the personas to stay, but I was so wrong. The players were loving it, but I could not predict what the personas would do. For example, I thought bringing back the kid brother would be a big pro for staying, but it actually had the opposite effect. The personas were (realistically) deeply disturbed and offended. The world I made was so basic (mansion on one side, cliffs and moors on the other, and garden and chapel in between) and I was adjusting the placement of things as we went along, so a map seemed unnecessary. But next

time I would definitely draw a map out in the beginning for the players who feel more immersed with cardinal directions. The Fool was more of a challenge to run. My sister was the Fool, so it could have been affected by sibling dynamics. But she also had trouble getting used to taking risks that could hinder the group, because this was so different from the way we normally play our characters. And her main stuff didn’t come up until the end with the parents as the main villains, so the player was feeling less involved. I had to figure out how to add extra encounters that would tempt Angie into using her powers. So I added her crush, Edward, captured and guarded by baddies. I tried to ask her to describe the way she was taking an action (somersaulting into the room vs sneaking) to find more reasons to let her roll the dice. I also wrote some extra arcana, so she had a power that was more “helpful.” (She recklessly drank at the vampire bar without asking what was in the glass, so she could roll to smell the blood if someone was nearby. The better the roll, the more extensive her bloodlust power.) She got the hang of her character by the third session, making Angie a flirty rogue who would recklessly attempt to seduce anyone who got in her way. As a consequence of Doug not paying back some god debt before making another request, I had his fey god turn the gardens into a big labyrinth. It was a cool visual and fun to throw everyone into the centre when Angie finally turned over her die to get away from a gang of bullies. But turns out it is not fun to just go off of the mechanics for rolling out of the maze. Once again, I should have made a map for the players to see where they were in the labyrinth.

In the conclusion, Ro gave their monologue, then the personas took turns trying to make Ro understand why it was wrong to create this world and manipulate everyone into staying. I’m glad that the players were so into it they were really expressive about how their personas were feeling. But it was intense for me to see my sister to look at me with tears in her eyes and say, “This is not the way! Come home with us.” I honestly started to feel a little attacked before I realized I could just ask the player if they wanted to roll a persuasion check, and then move on to the next turn. I realized, when it gets too personal, just bring it back to mechanics. After the personas were back in the real world, we all had a good time brainstorming what everyone’s life was like after the game, a year, and ten years later. Doug left the game owing god debt, so he had to have real life consequences. (The debt was for some fake gold from his fey god, so all money Doug touched in the real world turned to plants. Doug changed his profession from actuary to gardener until he paid it off.) By the end of the story, the personas ended up understanding Ro and themselves better. I think we all created characters that felt personal in some big ways, as usually happens with RPGs, but I think this game felt especially cathartic for everyone. Other than a few things, all the encounters went over well, the music was an exciting addition, and we all had a blast. There were some deep cuts and emotional moments that were kind of intense, but it was balanced with silliness and humour. The players were immediately talking about our next DIE

game. We even came up with another premise to play again as a sort of sequel to this story. (Kennedy snatched the dice at the end and hid them for safekeeping, but one day they are taken by some curious youths from the LGBTQ+ music camp that Ro and Kath started.) BIO Eva Restad started playing D&D three years ago with this same group of people. This was their first time running a game. They love playing games, immersive art, and meditation. They make art, music, and sometimes write.

You can see some of their art here: Closedeyevision.com https://www.facebook.com/churchofcolorandlight/ Listen to their music here: https://evalizard.bandcamp.com/ https://diegeisterbeschworen.bandcamp.com/ And read some stuff they wrote here: http://resurrectoakland.com/blog You can find the playlist for the game here: http://bit.ly/repentdieplaylist

EXAMPLE GAME: THE WORST INTENTIONS THE GROUP The party was a group of D&D players in high school, acquaintances through the school band, relationships, aesthetic affiliations, and convenience. Connecting the players was done with an approach like bonds in a Dungeon World party, giving each member a reason to know at least two of the others.

Ollie (He/ze), the Rage Knight • Crust punk, “you never grow out of

goth”. • Loved black and death metal and

their aesthetics. • Autistic. • Strained relationship with father. • Stepfather was a verbally abusive

cop; his mother was also a cop and enabled it.

• Dropped out of art school after a year, hated college.

• Started several unsuccessful webcomics after investing in the scene.

• Alienated from his punk crowd after legal troubles surrounding a legitimate act of self-defence

• Loses himself in fights in the pit. Since then, he has immersed himself in the music scene, getting into fights in the pit regularly.

• Previously the GM of the group • Drives: to be free of his family, to be

known for something positive, and to finish something.

I gave this persona the Rage Knight to align with the anti-authoritarian aesthetic they were building toward and to provide them with a weapon to swing

at the very systemic issues punishing them in their life.

Billy (They/he), the Dictator • State school for 1 year, then dropped

out to sort out their gender. • Finished a 2-year degree in webdev,

using it to make a Myspace page for their music career. They identify as nonbinary, agender, and genderqueer with a traditionally masc presentation. Works as a DJ at a gay bar.

• Previously the Bard in the party. • Misc: played drums in band, second

choice for the original group. • Drives: to be famous or popular, to

be seen. I gave this player the Dictator because their persona came across as very alienated and with a strong desire to share their experience through performance. I also wanted a Dictator in the party to play with the Rage Knight’s creative violence skillset.

Megan “M” (She/Her), the Neo • Tutored Ollie and then dated them in

high school. • High-strung bookworm from a

wealthy family. • College and her success were

assumed. • Drowned in extracurriculars (chess,

debate, etc.). • Attended Yale for chemistry and

excelled. • Isolated due to their intensive

studies. • Currently weighing a job offer with a

great salary, but remain undecided. • Struggling with their newfound

independence.

• Attracted to the Wizard, but played a Rogue in first game.

• Drives: To understand themselves, to find the (right) answer

I gave this player the Neo at their request, however I wanted to have a constant strong motivation for the character to interact with the world, often in dangerous ways through the fair gold mechanic. Kenneth (He/Him), the Master • Owned all the sourcebooks. • Hosted games at his house. • Raided family booze cabinet. • Belligerent over the rules. • Cheated dice rolls when nobody was

looking. • Played the Paladin’s oath

disruptively. • Previously an officer in the marines. • Alcoholic with a chip on his shoulder. • Believes he is not respected enough

for his service. • Nostalgic for his service. • Paladin in the original party. • Misc: first trumpet in school. • Drive: to feel important again, to

receive gratitude.

At the table, this group consisted of players consisted of all trans folks I’ve regularly played with, so going in we used a pre-existing set of ground rules that meant we wouldn’t use transphobia or gender discrimination as plot points or conflicts. The players took this opportunity to have plenty of long form in character discussions about the identity of their personas and characters throughout the campaign, especially as their characters had very different gender presentations than the personas.

THE PREP

The game was set in Necronomica, the world created by Ollie for their original campaign. I based the world around the core themes of the albums listed as fundamental to Ollie’s music taste and the imagery of their album covers. Additionally, at the end of the first session I drew three cards from a custom tarot deck I have, revealing the singularity, the game show, and the terrorist. Sitting down with these themes and images I set about building three set pieces, each of which primarily aimed at a single persona’s drives.

I chose to isolate themes of transhumanism and intuitive understanding in conjunction with the first tarot card, the singularity. This took the form of a vast and desiccated academy, part mausoleum and part college campus, where the scale was so massive and the weight of expectation and bureaucracy so heavy that the players were miniscule in comparison. Contained within was a series of interviews designed to frustrate the players with various miniscule tasks, leading up to a cinematically introduced auditorium, featuring a skewered skeleton in graduation robes. The skeleton’s mind held the secrets of Die and was accessible by our Neo, who felt the pains of academia most acutely. The skeleton’s mind would allow the players to access the truth of the world of Die, and also offer the temptation of perfect knowledge to the Neo.

For the second set piece, I created a colossus wandering forever in a loop, meaning it was waist-high in a canyon when the players encountered it. Focusing on the themes of the uselessness of forever war, I created two societies locked in an eternal

conflict. The first was a kingdom resting atop the back and head of the goliath, agricultural and feudal in nature. This would contrast the fantastic and idyllic imagery of high fantasy with the extractive and restrictive monarchy occupying the territory. Using a child king and the misguided enthusiasm for war of child soldiers, I painted a picture of misguided conviction that was difficult to stomach.

Around the outskirts was a society called the clingers, roughly equipped brigand types with a society suspended from the sides of the goliath and finding safety in the nooks and crannies of its body. They were characterized by their poverty, age, and the proliferation of prosthetic limbs. They would be introduced first as freedom fighters, to utilize the terrorist card, in their struggle against the oppression of the kingdom above. Additionally, they reveal that they have been rescuing the sick and elderly from the kingdom after their use and efficiency is reduced, giving them an anticapitalistic bent that I expected would appeal to my players.

The third set piece went unused due to the players, but consisted of a mountaintop performance venue to bear out the game show card and give the Dictator a chance to amplify their Voice and give the performance of as lifetime. I planned to introduce this area as one of two massive peaks, the other destroyed by the Master’s machinations and so the Dictator’s voice would be essential to restoring the balance of the world and allowing its people to continue unharmed. Elements of gender segregation existed between the two pillars, to highlight the reward for introspection about gender present in the persona generation.

For the final confrontation, I gave the Master a massive ziggurat inside a spreading realm of polygonal platonic ideals called the Glass Sea. The region was described as a warped field on a grid of light, with golden glass and shapes forming various stage-graphics, like houses on a film set with only one side or various “assets” aligned in perfect order like a developer’s cache in a videogame. The area was patrolled by a faction of golden haired and skinned elven riders of Tron-like motorbikes. Their enlarged yet muscled and graceful proportions were designed to tie in with the Fair of the comics while also alluding to the poisoned idealism of aryan preference. The glass sea itself was an allusion to the idea of US imperialism bombing the Middle East into a sea of glass, which reflected the Master’s ideals of an artificially peaceful world brought about through order and military might. The apparent disregard for the variety of people and ways of life in the world, in addition to the military affiliation, made the Master an easy villain and encouraged the players to chase him down more for vengeance than any desire for an explanation.

Throughout the game, the Master’s ideals evolved from an initial goal of playing saviour to a world where he could unequivocally take the role of the hero by bringing peace. It rapidly transformed as the personas grew to highlight their obsession with societal alienation. The Master’s plan changed to take the shape of a world dripping with injustice and sorely in need of heroes, so that the personas could each receive the validation they craved as heroes. Each set piece that existed as a temptation to either go home or stay in the world became an opportunity to find the solution to their drives in their characters. The Master himself would

serve as a monolithic villain to align their struggle against and bring them together following the social drift that had happened in the years since the original game. Both of these grand plans would end with the party thanking him, in his mind, for arranging such a splendid adventure and for freeing them from their miserable lives on earth.

HOW THE GAME WENT

Early on the party developed a reliance on creative violence to solve complex social problems, circumventing characters and encounters by, in some cases literally, cutting a path to the Master. This resulted in an extreme amount of ruin to both the landmarks of the world, and in one case doomed an entire country to almost certain death. Every sacrifice of life became another reason to escape the world, since their crimes multiplied rapidly.

Because of this approach, the encounter with the Master was one with a bitter GM whose “perfect plot” had been put in disarray. The villain’s monologue became a rant detailing the price paid by others throughout their

adventure. The irony of the party attacking the Master for trying to assert his will over the world through military order and homogenization when they had done just the same with extreme use of power was laid bare.

The final battle was decisive. With the party arrayed against him in his stronghold, the Master transformed into a giant wielding a classic military sabre. Using aesthetic changes to the Godbinder, I brought in various sand-themed powers to disrupt the group, before he was worn down by their superior numbers. While the players chose to return home afterward, there was very little celebration. If anything the group was solemn after the energy of the encounter faded and their exit from the world was described, as they weighed the cost of their escape.

BIO Numinous (she/they) is a trans game dev and motion graphics artist who runs and plays RPGs on the Gender Coffin, an all trans RPG server. They can be found on twitter @FWNuminous.

EXAMPLE GAME: Y2K APOCALYPSE CULT THE GROUP This is a one-off game using a non-standard DIE game set of personas (see next section). As such, it used the reduced character sheets, and I gave the players a more limited selection of starting backgrounds. As the players were international, I suggested that they were an international camp of kids who came together. Did the group run with this? Oh, did they. They’re all children who were at a camp of apocalypse cultists awaiting the Y2k rapture. The cult claimed that it would end the world, and all the true believers would get lifted up to a tech-heaven. They gathered everyone in the next village down from Portmeirion (where classic 60s TV show The Prisoner was filmed) to wait for the end of the world. The cult leader was a big fan. They all sat around and played role-playing games while waiting for the world to end. It didn’t. Everyone went home and got on with their lives… Susan (Suzy) American. Then, a snotty punk rock kid who thinks no good music was made after she was born. Spent her time at the camp rolling her eyes at the whole thing. However, when the world didn’t end, it entirely throws her. Clearly, to rebel against something like that meant that on some level she believed it, and it left a void. Works as a coder now, and is the person who has got the group together for this reunion. Was called “Suzy” then but prefers “Susan” now,

which everyone clearly constantly forgets. Divorcee. Smokes. Susan is the techhead in her day job and a snotty punk? Sounds cyberpunk to me. Neo. Gwen Parents were Welsh hippy luddites, so grows up in an isolated place with very little tech. Parents joined the cult less out of actual belief, and more that they’re similar anti-tech fellow travellers. As such, Gwen tends to be a bit bemused by the whole cult thing. As part of the 70s hippy tradition, her parents introduced her to D&D, so she was the one who ran the game. She now runs a yoga retreat in Wales, and has a general wellness social-media sort of approach to it. Recently divorced with a kid and a dog. Has a naked goat tattoo. Gwen was played by the most experienced player in the room, so I gave her the Dictator. Purple Italian with a very normal family – except the aunt, who was a member of the cult. Purple bought in entirely, and ran away with her aunt to go there. The first the family knew of where she’d been was the TV coverage afterwards. Her response to the cult failure was a belief that it was just a mistake – the world would end, but just in another way, which she continued to explore. In an interesting parallel with Gwen, she also a yoga teacher, but hers is a less grounded, more fanatical approach. She’s bordering on being a cult leader herself.

The player had never touched a game before, but also expressed an interest in playing someone who’ll get angry and hit things. Emotion Knight. Hansel Wunderschmidt Firstly, let’s have a second of applause for the player’s choosing Hansel’s name. Hansel was a true believer, his parents actually the two main public mouthpieces of the cult. However, when the cult failed to come true, it became clear that the cosmetically-enhanced parents were just scammers. Post-Cult they continued in a similar vein, with further scams. They were rich for several years, until a deal got found out. They were looking at prison, when both died, under mysterious circumstances. Hansel is a wannabe influencer, and presently selling his memoirs of A Boy In A Major Cult. Hansel got given Godbinder – it’s the least necessary choice, but sometimes “what’s left over” is all that matters. The player had expressed an urge to play with magic, and I suspected he’d be someone who’d enjoy talking to the gods. Holborn Perchance Parents were believers, and so was Holborn. But a little younger than the rest, he approached it in a much lighter fashion, not really getting “What the end of the world” actually meant. As such, he tended to make costumes out of motherboards and stomp around. His gleeful ranting to a newsteam (”UPLOAD ME TO THE DATASPHERE!”) actually made him a very early internet meme star. It was 2000, so it was basically him and the hamsterdance. Clearly, this led to a lot of people laughing at him… which Holborn takes in his stride. His path has basically turned him into an entirely sincere fringe spiritual /

conspiracy bod. Put it like this: Purple and Holborn are both fringe cultists, but no-one forwards Purple’s serious theories to friends because they’re so funny. Fool. Holborn was clearly the Fool. Patrick Son of the leader of the cult, who committed suicide shortly after the failure of the prophecy. Named after Patrick McGoohan, the lead of the Prisoner. Has been very distant ever since – the group isn’t mainly in touch, but no one heard much about Patrick. My character, playing the Master. THE PREP In a single session, I knew I couldn’t plan carefully for each character’s own desires. In the fifteen-minute break, I looked at what I had. The background had the advantage of a single traumatic event connecting everyone – and everyone’s own trauma was linked to it intensely. Doing a setting that harked back to that Y2k would give enough resonance for everyone. With five players, the sheer amount of biographical detail means it would be impossible to fit it all in a single session anyway, so I was also planning for a game that mostly based around the Master’s persona’s desires. The players going so big with the setting was a gift, meaning that Patrick’s story would also be their story. What does Patrick want from Die specifically? Does he want his dad back? No – what he wants is what his dad wanted to actually happen. As in, he wants the world to end, so everyone can go to their cult’s tech heaven. He wants his dad, and everything he grew

up with, to be right. DIE has offered Patrick a world that he can destroy. So, as opposed to a standard Master who wants to live in the realm, Patrick is actually trying to destroy it. So how is the old fantasy world being destroyed? The idea is obvious. Y2k bug? Fallen beetles and scarabs, consuming everyone and all reality. In the fantasy language, it’s an apocalyptic threat, that’s emerging from far beneath the earth to tear down society. As we basically have an hour and a half to actually get through the adventure part, I know there’s not really time for more than a handful of encounters. I think of a rough structure: 1) The arrival in Die. I drop the room the

personas are playing the game in intact into the world… then have the Fallen scarab starting to tear down the walls, revealing they’re in a tunnel system. Introduce the threat of these “bugs”. It’s clearly a play on the Y2K bug, as well as the techno-utopian ideas of the cult. Fill the whole environment with them, with little ones just being scenery, while the larger ones are threat. I’d use the small ones more as an atmospheric effect and a hint of bad things to come.

2) When they leave the room, they’re in

a tunnel just beneath the capital city of the fantasy world. I do no preparation on this – I will ask questions to the players about their teenage RPG world, and then subvert them. All important information will be given to the players, and they’ll be informed other heroes have died in the

attempt to stop the Master and his Father, who lie far beneath the planet. How can they get there? Likely, the city can teleport them there, but the players may have other ideas.

3) The final encounter. I have the image of the father on the throne, and Patrick prostate before him. Except the players realise the father is already dead, and Patrick is paying homage to a corpse. The entire place is covered by a carpet of bugs, also paying homage. And here? We can see all reality is being eaten. Give the players a chance to approach the problem however they wish – Patrick’s initial take is “If reality ends, we will all go to heaven.” Can he be talked around? I have no idea, but look forward to finding out.

I also get a quick grab bag of atmospheric ideas – the Godbinder has selected the God of Light, which I played as a peppy utopian cyberpunk AI. The actual Neo’s computer was basically Clippy (”You look like you’re trying to shoot someone in the head!”). That The Prisoner is in their background means I may lift some key images from the Prisoner TV series – the iconic Rover (the big white balloons) strikes me as useful. Otherwise, I make do with asking questions about the RPG world, then integrating, and always harking back to the Y2k stuff to give an aesthetic. HOW THE GAME WENT It seemed to work well enough. Phew. ABOUT ME I’m Kieron Gillen, and I am a word man.

CUSTOM MINOR MIRACLES AND SPELLS When coming to polish the Arcana I hit this section and winced. I knew it was rough and ready, but it was just not right, in any way. However, due to it being referenced so much in the main text, I realised that it had to be in here – so I added some caveats, and decided to let it go. It simply didn’t do what I wanted it to do. With DIE, there’s a need to try and be quasi-objective in the inward rules. As such, I wanted to try and create a solely objective system for generating spells. I was clearly being influenced by liking 90s computer role-playing and strategy games like Lords of Magic and Legend, where the player strung “nouns” together and it all kicked in. So you’d add a projectile to an explosion to a projectile to a damage, and it created a projectile which hit and then sent an explosion of missiles streaming out. Which is pretty nifty, and very much the sort of game that Sol would have been playing circa designing DIE. Now, I knew that it wouldn’t be that robust, as it’s not a computer game’s clockwork perfection, but I hoped to get something that held together in a fairly coherent way. And what I designed did. As far as it went. Which wasn’t nearly far enough. The main problems? 1) DIE’s system of target difficulty is

just too coarse to get fine graduations in. If you’re selecting from a list, and all options increase their difficulty, add even a few and you hit a number which not even

DIE’s hyper-competent spellcasters can regularly cast.

2) When trying to simulate a

complicated spell, there’s not nearly enough guidance on how all the elements interact. Trying to add some would be a huge job, and lead to a system far more complicated than anything else in the game.

So yeah. It just didn’t do what I wanted it to do. Luckily I then realised what I wanted it to do is completely extraneous for what DIE is. What the following actually is: a way to set a difficulty and some core in-game effects for any basic RPG spell you’d like to cast. That’s all it needs to be, and that’s all it is. Phew. NOT USING THE FOLLOWING RULES The Minor Miracles (and spells, generally) are one of the most number-heavy bits of DIE. The players don't necessarily see it, so you can fudge it, but a rule-of-thumb setup will be a distinct turnoff for some GMs. If you're one of them, limit the Godbinder to Major Miracles and their pre-generated spells on their character sheets. As in, treat any magical effect not on their character sheet as a Major Miracle, with a relatively small cost. Kill a single enemy? Do a small quest or cost a God Debt or two. That kind of thing. As a halfway house, there is a large list of traditional RPG spells whose difficulty

level has been pre-calculated (and also shows you how I generated their difficulties according to the system). These are useful spells to swap in and out of a Godbinder’s character sheet if they want to either switch their spells for the already existing gods on the sheet or generate a whole new god. Using a Major Miracle for a Godbinder to get access to another Minor Miracle permanently is definitely an interesting option, for example. It’s worth noting that the pre-generated miracles on the Godbinder sheet are one point less expensive than they are when generated by the systems. Your core spells are simply easier to cast. If you are replacing a Godbinder’s miracle with one generated from these rules, you should reduce its difficulty by one. Basically, however you want your DIE world to work is fine. All DIE worlds play by their own rules, remember. USING THE FOLLOWING RULES Minor Miracles’ and spells’ difficulties can be calculated by totalling the costs of each individual element of a spell. Yes, spells and Miracles are used interchangeably in the text that follows. Miracles means Minor Miracles. Firstly, think of the spell and what you want it to do. Or look at your favourite RPG manual, and see a spell, and think how that could work in a game of DIE. The difficulty of a spell is created by adding together the cost of its effect and its limits. Effects are specific core magical abilities, like healing people or hurting people or increasing stats or whatever. Your choices here provide core rules which can be integrated into the game.

Limits are what actually gets affected by the effects – the range operated to, how long it all lasts and so on. Most effects and limits add one difficulty each. There are some which add more, as they’re relatively more powerful. For zero difficulty, you automatically get a Range of touch and/or self, a Length of instantaneous, and the number of Targets of one. Plus nifty cosmetic visual effects. You can have all the impressive sparkles you want for free. Sparkles for everyone! For example, consider the sturdy genre classic Magic Missile. It flies through the air to zap someone. Its effect is Damage and its only Limit is Range. Looking down the list, it does Damage at Range. That’s one effect and one limit, meaning the total difficulty to cast a Magic Missile would be 2. Minor secondary effects to a spell do not affect difficulty as long as the advantages and disadvantages even out. If not, you should increase the difficulty by one. For example, transforming into an ursine bear may give you an advantage on attacks due to the considerable advantage of being a fucking bear, but will give you disadvantages to tasks like opening doors, word-processing or getting down at the local discotheque, unless it caters to larger hairy men. Sometimes spells have complicated after-effects. The effects of these should follow the narrative of what the spell actually does. For example, Cloud Kill summons a massive cloud of necrotic gas which fucks up people who breathe it in. It’s easy enough to calculate its core value

– Death Damage as its effect; Ranged, Large Area and Duration as its limits. Duration, Death Damage and Ranged cost 1 apiece, while Large Area costs 2, leading to a hefty difficulty of 5. However, while the rules explain how it works in the opening attack round, how does it affect people who choose to go into it later? That’s up to you when you design the spell or to decide in play. I’d make any character who passes through the gas on their turn roll a Constitution test with a difficulty of 5, taking one hit for every point you fail by. Maybe you’d do something else. That’s the key thing. Let’s put it in bold. The point of this system is to give you a difficulty and some core rules for the spells in the game. It is not meant to limit what sort of spells you can create. If something is clearly nonsense, don’t do it. REMIND ME WHAT THE DIFFICULTY NUMBER IS ACTUALLY FOR Sure. The difficulty is the target number of successes the players’ dice pool must match or exceed to successfully catch the spell or miracle. Godbinders base their dice pool on their Wisdom. Masters base their dice pool on their Intelligence. The rare magic-using Fool uses either Intelligence or Charisma, depending on the players’ preference. QUICK AND DIRTY METHOD? If you want the simplest rule of thumb to generate a spell to keep in your head?

The following gets the vast majority of the system, bar fringe cases. If the spell does a thing, it’s difficulty 1. If it does a thing to someone over there? It’s difficulty 2. If it does a thing to a bunch of people, it’s difficulty 2. If it does a thing to a bunch of people over there? It’s difficulty 3. If it does another thing while doing the thing? Add one to the difficulty. If it does the thing for a while? Add 1 to the difficulty. You’ll be fine. I’M A PLAYER AND I’M GOING TO MIN/MAX THIS TO FUCKING DEATH These are experimental rules. I’m showing how I’ve codified spell difficulties. The point of these rules is to try and ascertain what the difficulty cost of a spell should be. As in, you sit down, work out what elements could go into a spell, and come up with a number. The point is to work out what a spell should cost, not to work out what the system can let you get away with. While these rules are mainly for the GM, they’re also accessible to players. Certain players are going to explicitly look for things to exploit in the system, and work out something ludicrously powerful, impossibly cheaply. Magic is supernatural, so against scientific meddling. Gods are egotistical beings, fickle, and liking of respect. Neither like being treated like this. If a GM believes a spell is actively trying to exploit the system, the difficulty of the spell is doubled.

LIMITS AND EFFECTS Here’s a selection I’ve used for making the spells. The number in brackets is the cost. With multiple numbers, that’s the cost for multiple levels of it, with the implication you can stack. As in, you buy level 1 before level 2 and then level 3. For

example, if level 1 is 1 difficulty, and level 2 is 3 difficulty, then to cast it at level 2, it would be 4 difficulty. You should feel free to create keywords of your own. Beta rules, darlings. We are highly hackable.

LIMITS DISTANCE Close Range (1) Can be targeted at someone inside the area of an average melee. Think ‘thrown weapons’ range. Medium Range (2) Can be targeted at people outside of an average melee. Think ‘reliable arrow or gun’ range. Far Range (3) Can be targeted at people in sight. DURATION Duration (1) The spell lasts for the length of an average combat, unless countered in some way. Hour Duration (2) The spell lasts for an hour. Day Duration (3) The spell lasts for a day, unless countered. Ongoing Duration (5) The spell’s effect lasts indefinitely.

AREA Area (1) Affects everyone within sword-reach of a target. Large Area (2) Affects everyone within around the area of a sizeable room. Extreme Area (3) Affects everyone in a large area – about the size of a hall. When using an area effect, as well as rolling to match the difficulty for casting a spell, you also use the same number of successes to compare to the target’s resistance. For example, if it’s a physical attack it’s usually their defence. If it’s a mental attack, it’s usually half a character’s Willpower, rounded down. This means that an area effect spell could actually affect some targets in a region but not all of them. For example, a player casts a sleep spell. In the area are five henchmen and a noble wizard. The henchpeople have a Willpower of 4. The Wizard has a Willpower of 7. The player needs three

successes to cast the spell. They manage to roll three successes, casting the spell. As this is more than half the Willpower of the henchpeople, so they fall asleep. As it is less than the Wizard’s Willpower rounded down, the spellcaster manages to stay awake as their allies slump all around them. When you cast an area effect, you can only use each special once. You do not get to use the special on everyone in the group. For example, a player casts a fireball on five orcs with defence 1. The player rolls a 6, two 4s and a 2. As the orcs have a defence of 1, the player causes 3 hits on each of them. However, as the player only rolled one 6, they can only choose to activate the fireball’s special (“Set a target on fire”) once, meaning only one orc is set on fire. Poor orc. Universal If you want to do a universal effect (as in, affects everyone in the world you’re in) you will be looking for a Major Miracle (if you’re a Godbinder), a Cheat Token (if you’re a Master – and likely not even then) or a quest to find out how you can actually achieve such a feat. Selective (1 for Area, 2 for Large Area, 3 for Extreme Areas) For an area effect, you can add selectivity – so you can choose who inside the area is affected by a spell or not – at increasing costs. Worth noting – if not selected, the character is included in any negative effects of the spell. For example, a Master casts a ball of fire around themselves. Anyone nearby them will be attacked by the spell. As

the Master didn’t add Selective to this spell, it includes themselves. Selective means actively in that moment being able to choose who the spell works on – as in, “friends” or “foes.” The spell works on who the spellcaster wants. Something which is not chosen in such a way does not change difficulty. For example, a fireball that affects everyone who is not wearing a fancy hat does not change its difficulty. This rule may seem strange, but Masters with rule-bending powers are right shits. NOTE ON AREA EFFECT AND HIGH DIFFICULTY It’s worth noting that in the present system a spell which succeeds with a high difficulty will always be highly effective (i.e. a difficulty 4 attack spell hitting a creature with defence of 1 means that any successful casting of the spell will provide four hits). This is primarily done for speed of play… and also high difficulty spells are extremely rare in the system, or at least costly in terms of expending player resources (like a Godbinder’s debt). As they are so hard to succeed, we prefer it to always be a big moment rather than risking succeeding in casting your ludicrous Cloud Kill (or whatever) spell and then rolling badly for the attack and it becoming an anti-climax. If you dislike this, you can make a spellcaster roll to cast the spell and then roll again to see how successful the attack is.

EFFECTS Remember that narrative is the key thing. If the spell as described does not have an effect, it doesn’t damage. For example, something immune to fire would not be hurt by fire damage. Something which doesn’t breathe is likely immune to gas, and so on. PETTY SPELLS (aka EFFECTLESS) Most of the following effects are relatively powerful, with even difficulty 1 simulating something as brutal as a physical attack. There are many magical effects that aren’t quite as dramatic, such as creating light. In this case, the effect cost is zero and the spell is known as “Petty”. The cost for all limits remains. It’s suggested that for Petty Magic in a non-combat situation, they’re considered routine actions for any trained magician, and so don’t require a roll. HEALING AND HURTAGE Damage (1) Causes harm to a target, identically to a normal attack. There are also more specialised alternates which add a special to the attack, which are collated at the bottom of the list. Defence (2, 4, 6) Adds a point of defence to the target. The cost of this is “2” as it’s adding two disadvantages on all attacks. Abstractly, if you wanted to just add a disadvantage (i.e. one bad dice) to an

attacking opponent’s dice pool, it would cost a single point. Counter-Attack (1) Anyone in range of this spell who attacks the target of the spell suffers a 1-success attack in retaliation. For example, casting a Counter-Attack spell on yourself would mean anyone who is within touch range (i.e. in a melee attack) would be hit by a 1-success attack if they attacked you. Heal (1) Heals a target, with the number of successes the amount of Health healed. The maximum number of Health that can be healed is limited to the number of Heal effects you have added. As in, if you add Heal to the spell multiple times you can increase how much it heals. You can only cast this spell once a day on the same target, unless the target has suffered a further wound. TRANSFORMATION The following three – Tweak, Alter and Boost – are often used as part of shapeshifting spells. As such, a cosmetic effect can be added with no extra cost. As per always, assuming advantages and disadvantages even out, there are no costs for them. For example, earlier we gave the example of turning into a bear, so gaining an advantage on attacks due to the considerable advantage of being a fucking bear, but giving you disadvantages to tasks like opening doors, word-processing or getting down at the local discotheque. The actual "Turning into a bear" part is no extra cost, as it is purely cosmetic.

It’s worth stressing that this lets you transform your appearance in a general way. If you want to transform it in a specific way, the illusion keyword is required. You want to turn into a bear? This spell works. You want to turn into a specific bear? You’ll need illusion. Tweak (1) Change which statistic is used in a rule. For example, guard dice is normally calculated by dexterity. A tweak spell may change it so it’s calculated by wisdom, traditionally higher in Masters and Godbinders. Alter (1,3,5) Swap one higher statistic to another lower statistic. At a higher level, you can swap multiple lower abilities for one higher one, with the higher one becoming the level of the lowest. For example, with Alter (1) a Godbinder with Wisdom 4, Strength 2 and Constitution 2 could cast a spell which increased either Strength or Constitution to 4 while Wisdom would drop to 2. With Alter 2 – costing 3 difficulty – you could transform both Strength and Constitution to 4 while Wisdom would drop to 2. Boost (1,3.5) Add one to a characteristic. No matter what the source, lesser level abilities do not stack – you can’t cast a Boost three times to add 3 to your abilities. Curse (1,3,5) Reduces a given statistic by one to a minimum of one. If you reduce Constitution, you reduce your Health maximum, and so reduce the maximum number of Health dice you can presently have. Like Boost, these do not stack.

For example, a player with Constitution 2 has 2 Health. They have been hit, and now only have 1 Health. They suffer a curse aimed at their Constitution, reducing it by 1. They can only have 1 Health. However, as they only have 1 Health, they do not lose a further 1. If they had been cursed before being wounded, they would have lost that Health. GENERAL MAGICAL STUFF Language (1) Communicate with something you couldn’t before. Illusion (1) You can make the subject of the spell appear exactly as you wish, including specific things. Despite the keyword name, if the appearance has no physical advantages – as in, no stat changes, and its advantages and disadvantages level out – the change can be actually physical. It also includes literal illusions, including light. Mental Attack (1,3) Alter the emotional state of the target, like a Dictator (See the “Running the Dictator” section). Each success changes the emotional state by 1. The first level of this ability lets you change the state (“It can make someone angry”) and the second lets you add a target (“It can make someone angry at a specific subject”). It should be stressed that hitting the difficulty means you manage to change the effect by 1 level, with each extra success being another level. As such, while spellcasters can mimic Dictators’ abilities, they are far more limited.

Counterspell (1) Cancels a single ongoing spell effect. If the spell has an ongoing difficulty (like a barrier), that’s its difficulty to cancel. Detect (1) The player will be informed whether a specified something is near or not. Detect Magic, Detect Orcs, Detect Nearby Discos that are Welcoming to Ursine Groovers. All under this. Summon (1,3,5) Summons a creature who is under your control for the duration of the spell. Summon Level 1 will summon a creature who has all stats at 2, and some advantages and disadvantages on skills (for example, a wolf who has 2 on all stats and an advantage on biting and tracking, but a disadvantage on basically everything else; or a cute tech robot who has an advantage on coding and reading stuff, but a disadvantage on anything involving violence). Summon Level 2 will summon a creature who has two stats of a 3, and the rest 2, plus the array of advantages and disadvantages. Summon Level 3 will summon a creature who has two stats of 4, with a similar array of advantages and disadvantages. Creatures can be defined according to the systems as described in the “Preparing The Second Session” section. Major Weaknesses (-1) You can reduce the difficulty of summoning a creature by one if it has significant weaknesses – as in, its weaknesses are much worse than its advantages.

Barrier (1) Summons an obstruction that prevents anyone from traversing it. The number of successes equals the total difficulty required to traverse it. The nature of the spell and narrative determines what statistics or abilities could be used to traverse it – or avoid it entirely. For example, a Master summons a tower of rock which pushes them into the sky. They roll three successes. The GM determines that a player can use their strength dice pool to try and climb it, like anything else. The Neo, who can teleport, says they should be able to just teleport up there. The GM agrees, so circumventing the task entirely. Free Movement (1/3) Level 1 removes one limitation on movement. The higher level removes two limitations on movement. Define this broadly. Climbing walls freely like a spider? A level 1 spell. Levitation? Also a level 1 spell. Flying? A level 3 spell. Sense Blank (1) Target is no longer possible to be sensed by a single sense. For each level of the spell, you can lose a single sense. For example, to become invisible is a single level. To become invisible and not smell, it would be 2 levels. If you attack anyone when this spell is active, the spell cancels. STUNS The ability which stops people doing stuff. There’s two sorts of stun. Stun either wears off or can easily be negated by an outside action. The way something can be negated depends upon the fiction of the spell.

Paralyse (1) The classical RPG stun which wears off, but cannot easily be negated. Sleep (1) The classical RPG stun which does not wear off, but can easily be negated. A Stun spell is resisted by half its target’s Willpower, rounded down. The amount a stun beats its Wisdom is the number of rounds a target is stunned. “Easily negated” tends to mean actions not based on successful rolls – for sleep, merely shaking a shoulder or making a lot of noise will wake the people. “Not easily negated” can include a target rolling their Wisdom in a round to try and overcome the paralysis, with the number of rounds remaining to be the target. Clearly, if it’s only a single round, there is no need to do this. If a spell’s form of Stun has a downside as well as an upside, you may also use the Stun keyword for all of it. For example, a temporary turn to stone could work as a Stun, as long as the target is basically invulnerable while stunned. The target loses the ability to roll Willpower to try and snap out of it, but gains invulnerability, so it basically evens out. DAMAGE POWERS If a spell or miracle has multiple damage effects, it can use any of their specials. This section is especially one which your friend, the Gamesmaster, encourages you to expand as you see fit. Fire Damage

As damage, but adds “Special: if this attack does a wound, the target is on fire and suffers 1 wound every round until the flames are extinguished”. Light Damage As damage, but adds “Special: this attack blinds the target, meaning they suffer two disadvantages on all tasks involving sight until their sight is returned". Plant Damage As damage, but adds “Special: this attack immobilises the target until they either free themselves or are freed”. The difficulty of this task should equal the number of successful specials that have been activated on the target. Death Damage As damage, but adds “Special: this attack curses the target, reducing their strength by one for the remainder of this encounter”. Pain Damage As damage, but adds “Special: gain disadvantage due to pain for the rest of the encounter”. Light Boost As Boost, but also adds “Special: if target is attacking an undead monster each hit causes two hits” to their attacks. Gas Damage As damage, but adds “Special: if hit bypasses Guard”. Also, one whose name will likely make players snicker, bless ‘em.

SPELLBOOK Here are some classical RPG spells transformed into the language of DIE. For more examples see the DIE archetype sheets for the Godbinder and the Master, but remember those core abilities have a difficulty of one less than the system described above. Flash of Light (No Effect) = Difficulty 0 Makes a momentary flash of light. Illusion counts as “light” for our purposes. It’s a minor effect, so has no cost. Light (No Effect, Duration) = Difficulty 1 Makes some manner of glowing light that lasts for an encounter. It’s worth noting that as there’s no limit to casting spells, this can be updated indefinitely. Also, as it’s petty magic, it shouldn’t require a difficulty roll as it’s a routine task. Detect Magic by Touch (Detect) = Difficulty 1 The GM will reveal if an object the player is touching is magical. Detect Magic (Detect, Area) = Difficulty 2 The GM will reveal what, if anything, in this vicinity is magical. If you want to make them carry on glowing, it’d be difficulty 3 to add a duration. Summon Servant (Summon, Disadvantage -1, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Summons a helpful servant and can do anything a person could do... but cannot do anything at all violent. Speak To Ghosts (Language, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Ghosts may speak your language, but there are barriers like the whole being dead thing, right?

Magic Missile (Damage, Ranged) = Difficulty 2 A magical projectile which will hurt someone up to medium range. Mimic (Illusion, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Transforms to be visually identical to someone else. You gain none of their special abilities or statistics. Sleep (Stun, Range, Area) = Difficulty 3 Makes anyone in a given area go to sleep. Fire Armour (Defence, Counter-Attack, Duration) = Difficulty 3 Covers yourself with magical burning armour for the length of a combat. Increases Armour by 1. Does 1 damage to anyone attacks you. Fireball (Fire Damage, Range, Area) = Difficulty 3 Creates a fiery explosion within medium range, affecting everyone in a small area. The attack has “Special: if this attack does a wound, the target is on fire and suffers one wound every round until the flames are extinguished”. Summon Wolf (Summon, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Summons a wolf (all stats 2, advantage on wolf stuff, disadvantage on non-wolf stuff) for the length of an encounter. Summon Monster (Summon 3 (5), Duration) = Difficulty 6 Summons an enormous threatening monster to serve you for one combat. (Strength 4, Constitution 4) Tanglevine (Plant Damage, Area, Selective) = Difficulty 3

Makes vines burst from all sides near the caster, tearing down at his enemies. Attack everyone: attack all enemies in close area to caster. Add “Special: immobilize”. Cage (Distance, Barrier, Duration) = Difficulty 3 Wraps a barrier around the target, with the number of successes of the spell equalling the difficulty for the target to escape. Transform Into A Bear (Alter 3, Duration) = Difficulty 4 You become an actual bear. Your Constitution and Strength are increased to the level of your wisdom, while your wisdom drops to the level of whichever is lowest between Constitution and Strength. Lasts for one encounter. You gain advantages and disadvantages appropriately. Bless (Area, Boost, Duration) = Difficulty 3 Gives everyone +1 strength who is near you at the moment of casting for the length of a combat. This is everyone in the area. If it’s a selective area, it will be difficulty 4. Alternative Bless (Area, Boost, Duration) = Difficulty 3 Gives anyone who is presently standing near the caster +1 strength for the duration for one encounter. This is primarily to show that the same keywords can have significantly different effect. Wither (Curse, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Anyone you touch reduces their strength by one for the duration of the combat. They resist with their Wisdom. If the spell succeeds but the target resists its, they suffer a disadvantage on strength tasks for their next turn.

The “if the target resists” bit is just codifying “always feel free to interpret a partial success” part of the main rules. It’s included here to get you thinking about other similar situations. Group Wither (Curse, Duration, Selectivity, Area) = Difficulty 4 Makes all enemies nearby get -1 Strength. The target difficulty is the Wisdom of the individual. Alternative Group Wither (Curse, Duration, Area, Range) = Difficulty 4 Makes all people at a distance in a group suffer -1 Strength. The target difficulty is the Wisdom of the individual. Divine Light (Ranged, Blind Damage, Double Damage) = Difficulty 3 Divine light which strikes a nearby individual. Special: double damage on a wound inflicted. Special: blinds target. Personal Force Shield (Transform, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Makes Wisdom rather than Dexterity generate Guard dice for the length of the combat. Another Personal Force Field (Defence, Duration) = Difficulty 3 Increases your defence by 1, lasting for the length of the combat. Cure (Heal) = Difficulty 1 Can heal Health to touch. Only 1 health can be recovered per day if the target hasn’t been wounded since. Greater Healing Touch (Heal, Heal, Heal) Difficulty = 3 As above, but up to 3 Health can be recovered at once. Healing Power (Heal, Distance) = Difficulty 2

Heals an individual nearby, with a single Health recovery max. Group Heal (Heal, Area) = Difficulty 2 Heals everyone nearby, including enemies. To make it selective would be difficulty 3 (Heal, Area, Selectivity). Can only heal a single health point to each character. Spiderwalk (Free Movement, Duration) = Difficulty 2 You can climb any surface for the length of a combat. Flight (Free Movement 2 (3), Duration) = Difficulty 4 You can fly freely at running speed for the length of a combat. Intangible (Free Movement, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Allows you to move freely through objects for the length of a combat. You can’t do fancy tricks like walking on air or beneath the ground. Not in keywords, but I’d say you can neither be hit by

normal weapons nor hit anyone with normal weapons, as that averages out. Invisibility (Sense Blank, Duration) = Difficulty 2 Turns the caster invisible for the length of a combat. If they attack, the spell cancels. Cloud Kill (Range, Distance, Duration, Area, Gas Damage) = Difficulty 5 Creates an area of noxious gas, away from you, harming everyone in the area. It persists for the length of the combat. Anyone entering (or remaining) in the area must make a Constitution test with difficulty 5 to avoid suffering damage equal to the amount they fail the test by. You’ll note that only the first bit of the spell is defined by the keywords – the latter is my extrapolation of how the rules for a big ol’ cloud of evil gas could work. If you want it to fill a whole room, this would be difficulty 6, as you’d need the Large Area keyword.

MINOR EXTRA RULES INCAPACITATION, DEATH AND INJURY If you’re trying a campaign, the death-happy way of play may be unsatisfactory. You maybe don’t want to be a Fallen that regularly. Here are a couple of extra rules to make death less likely. One is light and the other is more rules-y. LIGHT If a character is reduced to zero, they are unconscious. If a character is reduced to a negative value, they are dying. Characters only actually die at the end of a combat if their health hasn’t been brought up to at least one via healing during that time. You may allow a healer an extra action to try and heal someone at the end of a combat. NOT AT ALL LIGHT If a character's hit dice falls to zero, they are out of the fight, but still conscious. To act at all requires a Constitution test with a difficulty of 2. If they can act, any action is performed with three disadvantages. In practice, it is safe to assume that all but the most motivated characters will lie there and have a good cry. If a character suffers any damage when on zero hit dice or receive more Health than they have hit dice, note the number of excess Health. If they received only 1 excess Health loss, they are simply unconscious. They are unaware of their surrounding and

can't do anything, except breathe and maybe whimper a bit. If they received two excess Health, they are unconscious and injured. They remain injured even if they recover hit dice by healing. The injury should be defined in the narrative – for example, a broken arm, a lost finger, a chest wound. An injured character has two disadvantages on any challenge the injury would interfere with. For all other challenge rolls, they suffer one disadvantage. Some tasks may be simply impossible with a given injury. For example, Fragile Findus with a broken arm would suffer a disadvantage on any combat-related challenges or (er) typing. For everything else – charming people, remembering ancient lore, everything – they suffer one disadvantage. Being injured is just distracting. Equally, due to only having one active arm, this character could not wield a two-handed weapon or undertake other similar tasks. It should be noted you can have multiple injuries, which should be listed separately. For example, Injury: Broken Arm and Injury: Sucking Chest Wound. If they received 3 excess Health, they die instantly and often messily. Any future Health losses suffered by the character are treated exactly the same as the above. One excess would do nothing, as they're already unconscious. Two excess Health will add an injury. Three excess Health will kill them.

If a character receives three Injuries, they also die. It's worth stressing the general principle of “If something is reasonable, it should just happen” remains. For example, if someone is unchivalrous enough to slit someone's throat, you should probably skip the dice rolling and just kill the victim. Shooting at someone from across the room may require a hit roll to deliver hits – though normally with advantages due to the immobility of their foe. In this, and all things, the GM should ascertain whether they think something is reasonable or not, and once they have decided it’s reasonable, it remains reasonable (and repeatable) for the whole game. RECOVERY FROM INJURY If an injured character receives successful treatment the injury is now a Treated Injury. The character receives a disadvantage on any challenge that's directly linked to the injury. Certain tasks may remain impossible until the injury is fully healed. Fragile Findus has his broken arm treated. He now only suffers one disadvantage in combat challenges or (er) typing. He now has no problems charming people, remembering ancient lore, everything else. He still can't wield a

two-handed weapon. Seriously? Do I need to say this? Really? CHEATING IN FAVOUR OF THE PLAYERS DIE is based on the idea that the universe is relatively objective. The players are just characters like any others, and their advantages and disadvantages are based entirely on their unique state – namely, that they've got these massively powerful magical artefacts – the eponymous dice. However, this causes a conflict with a classical GM move. GMs have been known to cheat on rolls to favour the player if the alternative would break the game or be boring. Alternatively, some GMs have been known to cheat to save an NPC from death when there's a more interesting plot ahead. I’m shocked, shocked, I say. Generally speaking, we encourage letting the dice speak, but there may be times you wish to cheat in favour of the players in a quasi-objective manner. If you do so, the Master gains a Cheat Token. Yes, DIE’s dedication to quasi-objectivity is as such that we include rules to justify where the GMs cheat.

STORY STRUCTURE FOR BEGINNERS Okay, experienced RPG folks will see exactly how they'll take the various personality traits and dreams of the generated personas. Others will be, to use the technical gaming terms, shitting themselves. How the hell are they going to generate some emotional arcs for these people? Firstly, don't worry. If the players just have a dungeon adventure in another world before going home? That'll be fun. Remember the first principle: people getting together and doing stuff they enjoy is enough. Don't beat yourself up too hard. Sometimes it's not an evening for melodrama. Sometimes it's just mellow. Don't make it into a drama. Secondly, let me tell you about what 9/10ths of my day job is. I throw balls in the air and catch them. This is a mode of writing that I first heard described by Neil Gaiman. You mention something earlier in a story? As long as you pay that off at some point down the line, the audience will read it as a meaningful story. More than that – a clever story. Hell, throw a ball at the start of the story, and catch it three years later, and they'll think you're some kind of genius. Likely, you're not. You just remembered there was a ball up there that you've got to prevent hitting the floor. (Honestly, in that case, you'll probably do best to explicitly remind the readers multiple times that you know the ball is in the air, as otherwise they'll think you've forgotten it, and likely will have forgotten it themselves.)

This is a little like Chekhov's gun, but I much prefer the terminology of the juggler as it doesn't involve the fiction. It places you outside the fiction with you manipulating it, which is exactly how it works. Where Gaiman was simplifying is that there's all sorts of ways to throw a ball. Most of what he's talking about are big obvious throws. You show the audience the ball and send it into the air. For example, in The Fugitive, “Who is the one-armed man?” is a huge ball. It's what the story is about. If you never get around to doing something about that one-armed man, the audience is going to going to be lost, confused and disappointed. There's a second kind of ball, which you throw casually, in ways so the audience don't realise that a ball is being thrown. They remember the setup, but don't realise it's actually set up. My favourite example of this is in Hot Fuzz, where Pegg's cop is mocked by the two detectives with the memorable line “If you want to be a big cop in a small town, you can fuck off down the model village.” Audience laughs hard, story continues. An hour later, the climactic fistfight happens in the model village. It's a delightful scene, but it's even more delightful as the audience remember – oh yeah! The model village! There's a third kind of ball, which is the sneaky literary ball. This is thrown so quietly that barely anyone would ever notice it in a first read. This is a ball that is only noticeable on a reread. It's unlikely the audience will remember it, as it's taken initially as just detail. It's

when you come back to it that you see what you thought was just throwaway detail was actually key, and your understanding of the work explodes. How does this apply to us? RPGs are solely interested in the first two kinds of balls. You don't get to reread RPGs, so only things which the players are consciously aware of are useful. I write that, and am now chewing over how Actual Play recordings change that bit of advice. Hmm. With DIE the persona generation is the players throwing you balls. The first kind of ball – the big balls – are the huge character traits. If a persona's lover died tragically and they're distraught over it? That will inevitably form part of the story. If you don't, they'll be disappointed. The big balls are the player telling the GM what sort of story they want to play. The second kind of ball – the sneaky balls – are the ones that the players almost don't realise they're saying for their persona. Just little details. What's their favourite TV show? Where did they go on holiday as a kid? How they are very into Mars bars. These are the details they will be amazed with when they end up showing up in the story. They're also the details you can pick and choose from according to your interests, because the players will not be expecting them to turn up, and not mind when they all don’t.

You take all the big balls, and want to use them at some point. The sneaky balls are the spice. You don't have to use them. You get to pick and choose what amuses you, what combines with those big balls in interesting ways. Put it this way. A character talking about their lost love and someone who looks like their lost love turns up? That'll work as a meaningful scene. But, if due to some pre-game chat where a character makes a Breaking Bad joke, they enter Die and come across the Breaking Bad Winnebago and their lost love is now Heisenberg and they want you to join their drug empire? That's something else, and pure DIE. As a rough guideline to appearing clever, combining one big ball and one sneaky ball will give you something passably original. If players only give you big balls, you can get a similar effect by combining the big ball with a generalised fantasy trope. Or, to give the most obvious example, mash their lost love into Galadriel/Aragorn and you're sorted. In short: the arch plot of DIE is robust enough to support whatever personalised material you add to it. You don't need to worry too much. You just need to catch a few balls. Yes, the word “ball” has lost all meaning now.

“NOTHING HAPPENED” When I see people talking about comics (and not always mine) a fairly common complaint is “nothing happened”. A naïve reading would take that as “There was no progression of plot.” This would be often correct, but not always. As always, turn to Oscar Wilde: all criticism is autobiography. When they say “nothing happened” what they mean is “nothing happened... that I am interested in”. This means the “nothing happened” speaks to the reader’s own aesthetic preferences. Sometimes it means “I get no sense of characters’ personal arcs progressing.” Sometimes it means “no one punched each other”. This, as a working creator, is sometimes somewhat frustrating. Clearly, you wrote stuff happening that you thought was interesting. That's why you wrote it. Of course, that doesn't matter. If it doesn't work for someone, it doesn't work for someone. They're allowed their own aesthetic preferences. Leading back to RPGs generally and DIE specifically, you have an advantage. You have the audience in front of you. You can see what is appealing to what

individual, and thus you can tailor the experience to them. It is unlikely that any tone or approach you take will satisfy the whole group equally, so being aware of what is appealing to each player (and when they haven't had anything to appeal to them for a while) is key. This is particularly important as we reach the conclusion of the adventure. The climax of a DIE adventure will likely be chaotic, and you should be looking to give all characters a chance to be involved with it. For some players, it's giving an opportunity to close the emotional arc of their damaged relationship with their estranged parent figure. With other players, it's making sure they get a chance to hit the big baddie with their glowing magic sword. With others, it's both. Nothing wrong with emotional closure at sword-point. It need only be a grace note, but having something in the final encounter which is 100% theirs does a lot to make a player feel like their journey meant something, and walk away from the table thinking of not just the story, but their story, ensuring they feel that their time was worthwhile and Something Happened.

ENCOUNTER LOGIC When trying to explain how to construct an adventure I worked out a way to create a checklist of what was needed for a game. The more games I ran, the less I thought it was essential. Still… I want to show this to folks and see what they make of it. So… as you're developing encounters, here's a useful way to break down the sorts of encounters and how they tie together. This is a way to develop a necessary backbone for the game - in practice, it’s merely a more elaborate version of: “Where are they at the start? Where are they at the end? What’s to stop them from getting from the former to latter?” This is an “Elements of an Adventure” checklist to ensure there is a core structure. Further detail on each one follows underneath.

1) Doors 2) Chests 3) Keys 4) Signposts 5) Smoke Machines 6) Menus 7) Specific Details of the Encounter

ELEMENTS OF AN ADVENTURE 1) DOORS A problem which means you cannot progress in this direction unless circumvented in some way. A Locked Door is the classic example of a door. To open it, you need to open it with a key. Or something that can bash it down. Or someone to open it from the other side. Or any other way a player could work out to get past it.

It doesn't have to be so literal. A monster that won't let you pass is effectively a door too, though the player won't necessarily realise that it's a door that has a key. A monster could state that it wants gold to let you pass, which makes its “door” nature clearer, but most monsters could desire something that would let you get past them. Whatever that is, that is their key. Some doors don't have keys and need to be bashed down with force. In other words, any monster encounter which blocks your progress is a door. A well-signalled door tells players to work out what to do to get past it, and can logically guide them into side-quests. A monster that says it wants its memories of a lost love back, when the players saw a lost-memory emporium previously on their travels, implies a course of action which doesn't involve hitting the monster. Doors are what create the structure and pace of your adventure. The more you have, the harder it will be to get to the final encounter. If you want to create a hard problem for the player, you can create a door with a necessary key. This means that it is almost impossible to circumvent. A key is definitely required. For example, a magical door will only open with a certain unique magical key. It is indestructible otherwise. (We could enter a philosophical argument over whether any door is truly necessary. This is videogame thinking with one solution. I would advise always being slightly flexible. Even for the above, perhaps the players work out a

way to create a convincing fake, etc. If it leads to an interesting adventure, it's good.) For example, in Lord of Rings, the door to enter Moria is a door. As is the Balrog – it is effectively a door which stops you leaving Moria. 2) CHESTS A problem which does not block the players’ progress. A chest in a room sits there, and you can just ignore it and carry on your way. The classic example of a chest is a Locked Chest. You can find its key and unlock it. You can pick its lock. You can break it open. You can do pretty much anything to get inside it. Once more, be less literal. A casual, non-threatening monster sitting in the room, relaxing, who has the memories of another monster’s lost love in its back pocket is a chest. A merchant selling things is a chest. A seer who knows the weakness of the Master’s greatest champion is a chest. Chests primary use is to contain Keys. For example, the ents of Fangorn having a big old chat are a chest. The hobbits strictly speaking needn’t have interacted with them that much, but if they did, they can then have them attack Orthanc. 3) KEYS A thing which solves a problem the player faces, allowing progress. The classic example of a key is a key, which unlocks its matching lock. Once more, we need not be so literal. A key could be a magical chant, a rare item, making two warring families be at peace, or simple and necessary information. A password

is obviously a key... but so is someone revealing the actual location of something you're looking for. Keys are usually rewards. They are often found in chests. They are rarely left lying around, but you never know. The sword Arthur tugged from a stone worked pretty well, though, strictly speaking in our terminology, the Sword in the Stone is a chest. It's worth noting what isn't included in this list, which is treasure. You can absolutely give players treasure, but this is not actually a structural concern. The only treasure you need to consider at the large-scale planning stage is that which solves future problems. Namely, keys. For example, the ents realising that Fangorn has been cut down by Saruman is a key. 4) SIGNPOSTS Exposition is a dirty word, but some is needed to orientate. The signpost provides useful information to the player, with no cost. The classic example of a signpost is a signpost, which presents its information to you if you look at it. Once more, there is no need to be so literal. The bartender who tells the players that the Master who rules the dungeon lives on the lowest level is also a signpost. (The bartender who needs to be convinced to give you that information, of course, is a chest.) This information may be a key to unlock a door or a chest. It is perhaps more likely it will be used to point players in the direction of a problem.

For example, Gandalf turning up to tell Frodo everything about this big scary ring and what they have to do to get rid of it is a signpost. 5) SMOKE MACHINES Sometimes an encounter is about the vibe, man. It differs from a signpost in that it is not meant to provide information. It is meant to provide feelings. This is something which exists to present a creepy idea or mood, and is not necessarily even meant to be interacted with. The classic example of a smoke machine is a smoke machine, a device which pumps out a lot of fake smoke which makes everyone feel like things are well moody. Other smoke machines include rooms full of faceless children typing out lists of things their parents did which made them feel guilty. For example, every fucking song in Lord of the Rings is a Smoke Machine. 6) MENUS Where the players are presented with an either/or choice. The classic example of a menu is a menu, which lists various options of food you can eat. These are common in fantasy. For example, King Arthur choosing between a magical sword and a magical scabbard. They are also common in Buzzfeed quizzes, in terms of deciding whether you are more like Thanos or Rocket Racoon, or what Hogwarts school you belong to. Our menus are likely to range from which magical ally will join you on the quest to defeat the Master, to whether you’d rather stroke your dead cat or dead dog one more time. DIE is a

game of many tones, and Sophie's Choice is always an option. Menus also include moral choices, as anyone who's ever played a Bioware RPG will tell you. For example, Galadriel deciding not to take the one ring is a menu. Galadriel is the clear lead character of Lord of the Rings, natch. Chests and doors will be the majority of your real encounters. These are encounters which are likely to slow the player in a meaningful way. Chests, because they will likely be engaged with to get a key (or just out of nosiness) and doors because they will literally prevent progress. Smoke machines and signposts are unlikely to be sizeable encounters. Signposts are required for the logic of a dungeon to connect things. Smoke machines, by definition, do nothing bar create mood. It's worth noting that this means they are not connected to the necessary path of the scenario – but it's certainly possible they could escalate to something bigger. A roomful of dragon corpses, each wearing the jerseys of your old school football team, may be atmosphere. If someone tries to raise them from the dead, that changes to something more active. Smoke machines are useful things to have to throw into the story to taste. Menus can be sizeable encounters, or a smaller one. It's likely a menu is the end of a story for a player. It's worth noting menu ideas can often be effectively merged with the final encounter. The heart of the final encounter is a menu encounter. It's worth noting that menus are perhaps one of the more advanced sorts of encounters. Don't feel you're

doing it wrong if your logic structure only includes chests, keys and doors. There is one signpost which is pretty much necessary – to make the players know what they have to do to go home. For example, consider a GM who has sat down and worked out a structure first. The GM decided that the final confrontation with the Master is in their secret lair. The players can't get there, so the GM needs to make up an encounter that is a door to stop the players getting there. They want their game to have three main encounters. So as the door is one, they add two chests each of which provides a key. Both keys are needed to open the locked door. Oh – they also realise they need something to point the players in the right direction to the secret lair, so they'll need a signpost scene. That means they need ideas for three sizeable encounters (the two chests and the door) and a signpost to have a backbone for their game. Ideas for more signpost or smoke machine scenes could be fun to have additionally, as they rarely slow the players down. An idea for another door scene could also be useful. The GM hasn't thought enough about the characters yet to know if a menu could be useful, but they’ll progress with that in mind. In practice, I suspect most Gamesmasters are the sort to look at a map and then work out the encounter rather than vice versa, but it takes all sorts.

7) SPECIFIC DETAILS OF THE ENCOUNTER The GM now only needs to fill in the details of what the challenges are in each of these encounters. How much detail do you actually need? As much (or little) detail as required to be able to play them out. Do this for every encounter, including the climactic encounter. Be aware that this is a spine – it’s entirely possible your climax will be elsewhere. These is your preparation, remember - it’s not the game. Things not going to plan is the plan. For any given encounter, it’s possible you will have an idea for an encounter based on the persona’s temptations. If not, it’s likely you already have a detail suggested by the locale. If an encounter is set in a fantasy version of the kitchen of your house, or the Egyptian Hall of the British Museum, by the Nine of Swords or a large room in an old computer game with 396 Berserkers in, that implies something about what happens when the players arrives there. The second part is combining it with one of the players' backgrounds. This can be a minor detail or a major one. Meeting Grima Wormtongue or Bart Simpson may be a minor detail. Meeting your dead lover is likely a major one. Think about what emotional journey each persona is on. For an encounter, it’s possible you will need some statistics for the players to interact with. It’s worth noting this is not always necessary. It is also possible you will need to pull a character out of your posterior during a game. Either way, the following is a useful methodology for making other people…

DESIGNER NOTES

There’s been a lot of me talking about the game and games in general, but this is very much “Hey, Kieron, wtf you doing here, man?”

My primary aims were to: 1) Support the themes of the comic in a

different format. 2) Be as accessible as possible.

These broke down in a few areas.

ACTUALLY DO “DIE: THE RPG”

Back when I was a games journalist, I had a theory. Namely, that the most interesting licensed videogames weren’t ones which tried to simulate the specific experience of whatever they were licensing, but were the ones which simulated the general experience.

The example I always used, despite having virtually no experience with it, was the old 1980s Spectrum version of Alien. It’s a strategy/horror game where you have your crew aboard ship, and are trying to identify and terminate the eponymous alien. Except it does things like randomise who is infected by the alien at the start and so on – which really pushes it a little closer to making a game of The Thing, but I digress. Point being, it’s less acting out the specific experience of Ripley and friends, and more taking the vague scenario and then making it your own.

Designing DIE, that’s what I wanted to do. Not to make an RPG of the DIE setting specifically, but make an RPG about creating a group of messy real-world people and dropping them into a fantasy world that’s been shaped by

their lacks and obsessions and then see whether they want to stay or not. A set situation – the rules remain constant in terms of whether to go home, but god knows how many outcomes.

Honestly, this is the stuff that I’m most pleased with. In terms of how it turned out. The structure basically operates as I wanted it to. Phew.

PRETENSIONS TO OBJECTIVITY There’s a popular movement in RPG game design towards player-facing game. Generally speaking, I’m into it. One of the key things is that the Gamesmaster (if there’s one) never rolls any dice. So the actions of your antagonists are determined by the rolls of your players – to be coarse, if you fail to hit someone, they hit you. The GM describes an attack coming at you, and you roll to dodge it rather than the GM rolling to hit. People like this for various reasons, but the two main ones are that it puts the feeling of power into the players’ hands (as they get to make all the rolls) and it’s more efficient (as it cuts down on the number of dice-rolls in total). And they’re right – I love most of the games that do this, which fall into two sorts. One sort is the narrative-led games (generally) derived (or inspired) from Powered By The Apocalypse, and the others are those trying to streamline a classical D&D Experience. The former are trying to simulate how a narrative feels and the latter are trying to make a game run more efficiently. That I avoided this speaks to the game’s themes. It’s a game where “is this real?” is embedded in it. If you make the

players “real” in the mechanics in a way that everyone they meet isn’t, you already have your answer. The only difference between the players and everyone they meet are in-world abilities, gifted by their dice. There’s nothing special about players, as otherwise the story would break. Yes, there’s an irony – I was led to a more simulationist mechanic by narrativist urges. There’re a few advantages to it – “When something tries to do something, they roll something” is a mechanism that’s easy to explain, but I was aware that by doing this, I had to streamline everything else. Hence… THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM OF MATH

There’re various bits of games theory I’m aware of, in terms of how people process information. Manipulation of abstract numbers is more difficult for more people than manipulation of physical objects. DIE is constructed on a belief that where I can cut math I will cut math. Instead, we lean on objects, and the manipulation of objects. There’s a lot of games which are generally thought of as simple which involve adding one statistic to another statistic to get a number, to either get a target number to roll or the number of dice you need. Even that level of math is alienating to some players, especially as the game gets later and later (or the players get drunker and drunker).

Instead, I run off a dice pool which is based on a single stat. You then add single dice to it for various advantages. You don’t count anything on the dice – you symbol recognise (”If this dice is higher than 4, then it’s a success”). When you count the number of

successes you have, you just can use the dice. Everything is physical.

I have the belief that the longer a pause in the action where the mechanics influence the game, the more the mood of a game breaks. I try to minimise that as much as I can.

RE-MYSTIFICATION Of course, with all the other special rules for all the classes, streamlining the core mechanic is likely a good idea too. This game is a monstrous cognitive load on the GM, due to this design goal.

The aim with the archetypes was to make them unique, and somewhat unknown to the other players. You may know broadly how the other classes work, but you won’t necessarily know specifically. Everyone has their custom mechanics; everyone interacts with their dice in a different way and so on. “I am special in a way in which no one else is” is a fairly common goal in game design, but I wanted to really push it.

These are also the areas I suspect I’ll push in the game more in future. I’m playing around with some advancement options which are radically different for each class. I dunno if they’ll work, but it’s something I want to explore.

FETISHISH OF DICE & D&D

This is kinda obvious, right? Let’s try and take all those bits of the classical RPG and just play with it. This includes things the hobby was demonised for. Structurally, in many ways, DIE is playing “Maybe they were right to be scared?”. Gaming won, so we get to play with this now.

SIMILAR TO CORE ARNESON/GYGAX MODEL GAME

There’s lots of excellent indie RPGs which basically have (rightfully) understood you can throw a bunch of stuff out. If you’re starting from a group who actively knows nothing about RPGs, these are easy to teach mechanically (though often hard to play well for players – players’ ability to improvise is a skill, one that asks a lot from players). However, if you’re dealing with a group of players who have a cultural idea of how D&D works, that’s a pre-existing thing you have to work around. There’s enough D&D stuff in the world now that a complete lack of knowledge is relatively rare. They’ve seen piss-takes. They’ve maybe watched Critical Role. They have pre-existing expectations of what a game operates like.

DIE uses those expectations as the core. This is a fairly classical D&D-esque game with a bunch of weird stuff added to it. The core dynamic is the core dynamic, and DIE’s core system basically does work like a traditional game. It’s got weird stuff, but it’s still an Arneson/Gygax game. Also, this is my little tribute: did you know the first Braunstein proto-D&D games had players all playing characters sucked into a D&D world? This is kind of a tribute to that. We’ve always been doing that. AN EXPLICIT DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS You go into DIE and it’s a semi-traditional RPG. In the persona generation, it’s pure freeform. However, there’s conversation between those two forms, but kept slightly at a distance.

There’s a Cartesian thing in DIE, between the persona and the character, which I’m interested in exploring. I am aware that it risks making the game inelegant. I look forward to someone hacking this to PBTA. SOME WEIRD BITS WHICH JUST MUG ME AS I’M NOT A PROFESSIONAL Up until a week or so before release I had something called Hit Dice. There were two types of Hit Dice, one called Guard Dice and one called Wound Dice. They operated identically to Guard and Health in the current system, but you manually used dice as the tokens. It’s a joke about one of the core bits of D&D terminology – Hit Dice literally being dice that measure how many hits you have. In practice, it made the game almost impossible to play online, required far more D6 than are in a usual home plus the players always kept on picking them up and rolling them and forgetting what their guard was. But I persisted with it, long after I admitted it was a darling I just didn’t want to kill. A last-minute rewrite removed it to the system that almost all the playtesters were using anyway. Now, this sounds like I learned a lesson, but that I’m still using Guard and Wounds as separate concepts shows that I’m still on my shit. DIE isn’t a combat game. It’s just that I’ve always hated systems which have a single hit point score, and thought I could take an influence over from Halo and try it out. This is the work of an enthusiastic amateur, and sometimes I have to roll with that.

“FAILING” GRACEFULLY I use the word failing with reluctance.

I played a lot of games when preparing for DIE. There’s a lot of influences in here – there’s a reading list at the back of the main book of direct influences, plus a bunch more I was playing to explore. I learned so much from them.

However, the single biggest influence of everything I played was looking at how I felt when a game went badly when running it. Even when the players liked what happened, I found myself utterly distraught that the aesthetic effect wasn’t what was clearly intended by the designer (and myself). Games of cosmic horror ending with laughter. Games of paranoid backstabbing ending in the players teaming together. Ugh.

I’ve been pretty lucky in my career. Too lucky. I’m aware that it’s been a long time since I failed for a reason that was entirely my own sorry fault, and so am out of practice with dealing with something I felt was an absolute disaster. As such, those sessions were emotionally gruelling. Everyone often enjoyed them, but I was torn up for weeks.

Key thing: I wanted DIE to be flexible and to impart to the GM that all results are good results, and intended. Yes, you may want one sort of story, but if the game goes another way, that’s entirely fine. The game is about listening to what a group gives you, then building. The core structure is flexible, going from entirely quiet emotional beats to loudly beating the bad guys on the head.

There’s always a lot in games about looking after the players and making sure they have fun. There’s relatively

little about looking after the GM. That’s something I think is damaging and I wanted DIE to look after you. After all, you’re likely the only poor fucker who’s reading this bit of the manual. We heart you. We heart you hard.

THANK YOU

That’ll do. Honestly, if someone had told me the joy in seeing people take a structure you made and watching them run with it and making it their own, I’d have done this years ago. Ironically enough given DIE’s subject, this has proved to be a gateway to another world for me. Thank you. Kieron Gillen London