Out: an RPG about monsters & lockdowns


Here in Italy, where I live, we've been on lockdown for about a month and a half, maybe a bit more.

Empty streets. songs from the balconies at 6 PM, signs hanging from the apartments that read Andrà tutto bene ("Everything's going to be okay") and, in one case I've seen, Gesù regna ("Jesus reigns", which is at least  bold: who'd admit responsibility for such a messy situation?).

Back in my parents' town, just a few miles from Lombardia, it's been way worse: helicopter, soldiers in the streets, overworked health workers without the proper DPIs, ambulances that take away your loved ones and sometimes never bring them back.

The kind of scenario that makes you want to play a game, right?

Things are just starting to look up, and our Prime Minister has announced the beginning of Fase 2 - where, slowly and gradually, we reopen parts of the country. More people can go to work. You can visit your grandmother or your fiancèe (but not your best friend). You can, with the right precautions, go out for a jog.

You can go out.

So, I decided to publish a game.
Here's the premise: during the lockdown, you find yourself outside, far from home, although you don't remember leaving your house.
There are things you wanted to do here, and since you're here anyway, you might as well do them - or is it better to head straight home?
Everything's weird. Everything is crooked, and off-color, and mischievously threatening. Like this is  a nightmarish reflection of you world.
There are monsters, too, feeding off human emotions and the occasional unfortunate who stumbles upon this land called Nightmere.
You're just as weird, to be honest. You manifested some sort of mutation, or power, related to your wishes and fears: retractible claws, or little demon helpers growing out of your body when needed, or the ability to dissolve and painfully remake yourself from scratch in another place, like a bloody, visceral form of teleportation.
You have a bit of monster within you: let's hope it helps you get where you want to go, instead of corrupting you beyond any chance of going back.

The game is just one page long, it's meant for two players (one acting as the protagonist, the other one as the game master), and it's a hack of John Harper's Lasers & Feelings.
It steals a lot from David Brunell-Brutman's CyberPunk (in terms of rules and layout) and Fred Hicks' Don't Rest Your Head (in terms of aesthetics and ideas).
The system is very simple (roll dice and see how things go, use powers and see if you get corrupted), and everything from your character to the monsters' weaknesses can be generated by rolling dice. You should be able to read it and start playing in ten to twenty minutes, tops.
I haven't tested it yet, though, so any comment is useful and welcome (also, English isn't my first language, so help me out if I made some grammar mistakes).

Maybe you're still on lockdown, and you're sick and tired of it, and wish you could go out there.
Maybe you can go out, but you still need to process your social isolation experience.
Maybe you're afraid of all the bad things that could happen to you outside.
I hope this game can give you a little bit of weird, crooked wish fulfillment, or a way to play with a traumatic experience on your own terms, or to beat the shit out of your fears. It's okay if you just have fun exploring Nightmere and facing its monsters, though, it really is.
Just download the damn game and play, will you?
I hope it weirds you out, and I hope you like it.

Stay out of trouble.

Daniel

Files

Out RPG (English Version) 66 kB
May 04, 2020
Out RPG: Creatures & Consequences (English Version) 55 kB
May 04, 2020
Out RPG: The Ridiculous Cover 965 kB
May 04, 2020
Out RPG: Extended Print & Play 1 MB
May 04, 2020

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