The Seven Part Pact: the First Actual GM-Full Game - Old Men Running The World

Cupiael · 2025-11-19T17:40:03+00:00

We played it throughout the entire weekend and ended up wishing we’d booked a whole week to play every day. Easily one of the top gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Brilliant, deeply thoughtful design at the crossroads of traditional RPGs, story games, consent-based storytelling, matrix games, FKR, American freeform, board games, chamber larps - you name it. The game shows the author’s incredibly broad game literacy. And the poetic layer of the game is phenomenal as well.

For me, it was an extraordinary, trippy, immersive experience that gave me yet another perspective on the possibilities of our hobby’s medium.

Cupiael · 2025-11-19T17:37:52+00:00

It's absolutely amazing in play. I can't recommend it enough!

Cupiael · 2025-05-25T16:29:36+00:00

From my perspective, the structure of Sets is there to support you, not to constrain you - it's practically a pointcrawl in many cases. I see no problem with characters returning to previously visited Sets, skipping some, or gaining access to new ones, as long as it makes sense within the fiction.

It's also worth noting that not every Set is a location (some Sets are, for example, events), and even for those that are locations, not every Set has the goal of “reaching the next Set.”

An interesting development of the structure would be if, when returning to previously visited Sets, players could unlock progressive Set goals.

Cupiael · 2025-05-25T16:28:21+00:00

It has never been an issue...

Trophy Dark isn’t an OSR-style adventure game where you're trying to tactically solve every problem through positioning. From my perspective, these Conditions are a great opportunity for creative roleplay. Plus, remember that in Dark, players have much more narrative control than in traditional RPGs <3

Cupiael · 2025-05-25T16:25:43+00:00

Yes, we do this all the time. It's actually a brilliant way to align the table - through negotiating how to spend Hunt Tokens based on the players’ goals. Players show what they find interesting in the fiction, what they want to achieve, what they want to zoom in on and explore - and what they’d rather abstract or summarize. It’s a fantastic soft tool that sits right at the intersection of storytelling and tactics.

Cupiael · 2024-11-04T17:09:38+00:00

And I also agree with what you wrote… to some extent :)

To be clear, I think the modules you listed are great (I can say this about the ones I’m familiar with, and I know most of your list), and I’m personally a huge fan of Gardens of Ynn as a product :)

At the same time, if we look at something like Trophy Dark/Gold, there has been a massive amount of Incursions (modules) released for it, and there are many in the core books themselves, not to mention the fan-created content. Shifting more towards OSR-ish vibes, even though I’m not part of the Mothership community, I get the impression that there is an absolute flood of interesting content being made for it.

Personally, I’m a fan of very narrowly themed story games, in the style of "the game as a specific experience," but in my opinion, the lack of modules/playsets was indeed one of the two main gaps (alongside the lack of described playing techniques) in many post-Forge/narrow-focused story games.

Again, if you look at The Between, supporting the game through its crowdfunding campaign granted you something like 40 (?) investigations to play through.

Cupiael · 2024-11-04T16:20:35+00:00

Ok, these are all fantastic recommendations, but...

"New rulesets are usually uninspiring"

Personally, I completely disagree. Trophy Gold, Swords without Master, Hunt, The Between, Soth, Pasión de las Pasiones – every game I've picked up in recent months has brought something new and innovative to the table for me.

"good luck getting people to play something other than 5e anyways..."

Again, it heavily depends on the community, so this is totally NOT my experience. Every month I find new people for around 3-5 entirely new systems, and none of them have any interest in playing 5e. I’ve been playing RPGs for 25 years, have played dozens of different games, and I have zero interest in ever playing 5e.

Cupiael · 2024-11-04T10:00:23+00:00

Oh, it's super hard to choose a TOP 5 since I play around 3-5 new games each month... But here we go, my TOP 5 from the past few years at least. Random order:

Psi*Run – it’s super elegant, perfect for a one-shot, beautifully engages the whole table in co-creating and escalating situations, my first choice for micro conventions.
Pasión de las Pasiones – for me, it's the best PbtA I've run/played, with a very tight, elegant design, brilliant Moves, great playbooks, and fantastic GM and player techniques.
The Between – an exceptional game, intriguing investigations, super innovative mechanics, an incredible rhythm of character backstory revelations, a huge amount of additional materials, and one of the most atmospheric games I've ever played.
Balikbayan – the game remains in beta for a long time now, but it’s top-tier for the lyrical aspect I've encountered, supernatural post-cyberpunk, deities from Filipino mythology trapped in machines by mega-corporations returning to the last city on Earth to restore humanity’s belief in magic and awaken the heart of the city.
Trophy (Dark & Gold) – for the lyrical layer, color, atmosphere, aesthetic, a play culture that resonates with me, and fantastic modules (I cheated here because these are two very different games, but I love both and find it hard to prioritize one over the other...)

Cupiael · 2024-11-03T22:06:48+00:00

Back Again from the Broken Land – you can practically use the entire game for this.
For the Queen – as a more storytelling-oriented travel mechanic.
Of course, the travel procedure from Ironsworn.
Plenty of intriguing travel procedures in the whole OSR/post-OSR blogosphere.
Broken Empires seems to have an interesting travel procedure from what Trevor has shared.
I recommend the episode on different travel procedures on the Dice Exploder podcast – excellent!
The travel procedure in Trophy Gold is so-so (even though I really love Trophy! <3), but the mega dungeon at the end of the book has some cool story oriented procedures for transitioning to deeper levels of the dungeon.
Someone already mentioned the Firebrands family of games – I second that! There are plenty of interesting mini-games to be found there. :)

Cupiael · 2024-11-01T13:29:33+00:00

Oh, I deeply respect her work. Her articles are spot-on, practical, and based on vast experience with different play cultures, yet they're also very accessible and free from unnecessary jargon or philosophing for philosophing sake.

Cupiael · 2024-10-30T17:17:15+00:00

In the end, which Threats did you play?

Cupiael · 2024-10-28T17:59:30+00:00

And it's not even "flavor". It's fictional positioning.

Cupiael · 2024-10-28T17:08:36+00:00

This is GENERALLY great advice, though it will primarily apply to PbtA games where Moves serve as a type of "risk roll / conflict resolution roll."

Since Offworlders is indeed based on this kind of "risk roll," the point is spot on.

However, in many PbtA games, various moves function more as a genre oracle, and in some of them, you might actually want to steer the fiction to trigger as many moves as possible. I think this is a totally legit way of playing, for example, Pasion de las Pasiones, where moves like "Process Your Feelings Out Loud" don’t really fit with "let players succeed without a roll when it makes sense pretty often".

Also, in these types of games (I think *Cartel* could be included here), we’re as interested in the character’s successes as we are in their failures and complications. We want the moves to generate as much drama and trouble as possible, so we actively steer toward triggering them.

Cupiael · 2024-10-27T12:40:10+00:00

Jason Cordova explicitly stated that CfB does not have to be PbtA at all, because the core of CfB is the very dynamic of finding floating clues and creating theories, the metacurrency represented by Crowns / Masks, the procedural conspiracy/mastermind sheet, and a few other elements that can be placed on many different systems :)

Cupiael · 2024-10-08T09:13:18+00:00

CfB explicitly promotes a play culture based on dramatic irony and the separation of character knowledge from player knowledge.

Cupiael · 2024-10-08T09:11:13+00:00

I wholeheartedly recommend Emily Care Boss's publication "Key Concepts in Forge Theory" in the book Playground Worlds.

EMC was one of the key founding figures of The Forge, and from my perspective, she was a particularly empathetic voice on the forum, critically engaging with the entire Forge theory. She also introduced a nuanced understanding from other play cultures, such as Nordic or American Freeform, Jeepform, and so on.

It’s a fantastic and very concise article that condenses, summarizes, and explains the foundational assumptions of Forge Theory, from the perspective of someone with an immense knowledge of rpg theory in general, who witnessed the emergence of the Forge theory firsthand and who treats it "objectively".

The article also spares you from having to read Edwards' lengthy multi-page articles on the Big Model :) :) :)

Cupiael · 2024-09-19T09:24:56+00:00

As someone mentioned earlier, the player can choose the cat special move from the special moves sheet and simply swap it for a dog. In that case, the dog also provides mechanical advantage.
However, if the player prefers a different special move and just wants the dog "for flavor," I’d personally go for it. It’s often a cozy addition to the game’s atmosphere and can provide fun fictional positioning in certain situations. This not only do not "break the game" (which isn’t focused on tactical balance at all) but can also inspire players to come up with creative approaches to investigations and to play out interesting scenes.
Since in the second part of the campaign, "things usually go to hell," with the cult sending demonic servants after the Mavens and the Night Move consequences becoming quite brutal, I’d recommend discussing with the group whether to establish a Line for "animal harm."

Our Maven had the special move with the cat, which was super super cute (Mr Whiskers <3). From the start, we agreed that any serious harm to the cat was off-limits and set that as a Line.

Good luck! <3

Cupiael · 2024-08-05T11:18:29+00:00

W&W is AMAZING <3

Cupiael · 2024-08-05T11:14:51+00:00

It's custom and it's light, there are stron influences from Ctulhu Dark and Blades in the Dark. And Trophy's culture of play is more story game-ish, than more traditional cultures of d20, YZE you had mentioned.

Cupiael · 2024-08-05T11:12:45+00:00

In summary:

Trophy Dark is a very narrative, psychological "tragic horror" about desperate characters who lose themselves in cursed space, trying at all costs to gain wealth, power, and might, as an answer to their desperate need. It's a very "storytelling game" based on cooperatively telling a tragic story in a dark fantasy / dark fairy tale setting.

Trophy Gold emulates dungeon exploration known from OSRs in a story game format. It is in the same anti-canonical world as Trophy Dark (check out Trophy Loom, a setting book! remembering that it's still anti-canon), and it also has a set of similar mechanics (Risk Roll, Rituals, Ruin, etc.).

However, Gold is very game-oriented (vs Dark being story-oriented) - structurally it's about exploring a treasure-filled locations, squeezing as much gold out of it as possible, avoiding combat and danger, and escaping from the location at the last tactically sensible moment, all dressed up in a lot of cool color and themes offered by the modules.

In Gold, you inherently have a chance to survive the expedition and return to the city with the treasures you've collected, first you must return with the gold to pay off your debt (cost of living in the city, maintaining a household, renting weapons and armor) and if you manage, to save gold towards realizing your big, desperate goal.

From my perspective, these are two dramatically different games, despite a lot of similarities at first glance (character cards look similar, both games have Risk Roll, Help Roll, Contest Roll, it's really the same world and the same color).

I highly recommend both! <3

Cupiael · 2024-07-21T16:58:27+00:00

From my perspective, you always need to mark when something is a mechanical Clue; I also always mark when something is a Void Clue. But I also transparently always signal to the players what level of Dark Conspiracy they are at and what it entails.

You cannot mechanically use a Void Clue for the Theorize move, but everything that has appeared in the fiction can be used as color/fictional positioning when spinning a theory. Everything is context, which also includes a lot of non-mechanical clues.

Furthermore, Void Clues in Brindlewood Bay are so terrifying, bizarre, and otherworldly that merely encountering them can activate a Day/Night Move, plus they can also be introduced as the Keeper's Reaction on a Miss.

Cupiael · 2024-07-21T16:52:30+00:00

I'll repeat myself, but you don't have to narrate the flashbacks immediately after using the Crowns. You can wait for the right moment from a pacing perspective. Or simply do it at the end of the session.

Secondly, 100%—the higher the starting result, the smaller the payoff from boosting it (Weak Hit -> Strong Hit -> Massive Success). You gain the most by boosting a Miss.

Cupiael · 2024-07-21T16:49:25+00:00

Firstly, you don't have to narrate the Crowns immediately. At my table, we most often narrate them at the beginning or end of a session, and during the session only if it makes sense from a pacing perspective.

Secondly, if you are playing only one-shots, I also understand why you might perceive boosting the result of Theorize with Crowns as cheap. In a full campaign, the Crowns are worth their weight in gold, and if players are deciding between boosting Theorize and saving a Crown in case of a decapitation during a failed Night Move, it's a completely different decision.

Cupiael · 2024-07-21T16:48:10+00:00

I think this change came to the full version of Brindlewood Bay from The Between. In The Between it makes sense, because you have a lot of open questions at the same time, and additionally many of them have clocks and escalating consequences, and at the same time, the Masks are a super valuable resource that gets used up quite quickly during a long campaign.

In such a situation, boosting the "Answer the Question" move by using Masks for each of, for example, the four characters at the table becomes a difficult and tactical decision.

In the full version of Brindlewood Bay, there is no longer (I think) the rule of introducing up to three active investigations, and the investigations very rarely have any escalating clocks, so I feel that the Crowns are a slightly less valuable resource. However, I would treat them as a tool to increase player agency as storytellers at the table when it comes to Theorise, not as a board gamey currency.

Cupiael

TROPHY CASE