How did I miss this game?

Trophy Dark is a book full of terror.

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How Trophy Dark flew under my radar, I don’t know. On first impression, it’s lightning in a bottle. Here’s some highlights.

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Theme

It’s about delving into a bewitching forest where terror awaits. Players venture into a place they know will kill them, drive them past psychological limits, or corrupt them. It’s not saying your character is likely to expire, it’s promising it. It’s a tragic story from the outset, a recipe for dread.

Example: if your character confronts a monster directly, they die. No questions asked.

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Characters

Characters are simple, made by rolling on d66 tables. Perfect for a game where characters expire quickly.

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Mechanics

It’s a Forged in the Dark game. I love Blades in the Dark, but I haven’t gelled with a Forged in the Dark game until now.

Trophy Dark distills Forged in the Dark into a lean ruleset for fantasy horror. It retains the d6 dice pool approach, but you’ll be rolling fewer dice.

The key addition is Ruin. Ruin represents the forest’s corruption and can be acquired in many ways. If characters witness something unpleasant, the GM can have them make a check to see if they gain Ruin. It’s a way to pressurise the characters at any time, and a twist on Forged in the Dark - where power is often in the players’ hands.

With enough Ruin, a character is lost to the forest. Ruin is reduced by working in the forest’s interests e.g. betraying teammates. This is role-playing gunpowder.

Betrayals conjure horror, because it removes what often gets players through tough situations - trusting their teammates. Betrayals being part of the rules gives players the push they need to act against their party, and craft scenes with inter-character conflict.

GMing

Trophy Dark uses a one-shot structure, ideal for visceral horror experiences. The player and GM rules occupy around 20 pages each; it’s easy to learn and easy to teach.

The remaining 140 pages are ‘incursions’, one-shots with five sequential challenges. Incursions occupy a few double spreads each, and are drenched with ideas to build unsettling scenes whilst featuring topic warnings so you can choose the right one for your group. There’s even a recipe for making your own.

Silence moments are great for these kind of games, check out a guide on that here.

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Try it

I like what I’ve seen, and I’m keen to run Trophy Dark. If you like fantasy horror in a narrative game style, it’s worth your time. You can get a physical copy here and a digital copy here.

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Recommendations

Video: Dave Thaumavore made a neat video on different kinds of enjoyment derived from TTRPGs. It was a wholesome look at understanding how the community gets their enjoyment from different aspects of the games we play.

Blog: Over on Exuent Omnes, we got to hear about Exeunt Press’ continued development of their game Ratsail. I love it when game designers share their process and Exeunt Press make consistently great stuff, so well worth a read!

Book(s): This week I discovered Ronin, a Mork Borg based japanese edo-era inspired game. I’ve always wanted a ronin/shinobi game that really embraced the lethality of combat, and this might be it!