DIE: A ROLE-PLAYING GAME

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
1) INTRODUCTION

2) THE WORLD OF DIE

3) PREPARATION

4) THE FIRST SESSION

5) PREPARING THE SECOND SESSION

6) THE SECOND SESSION

7) THE RULES

8) RUNNING THE ARCHETYPES

9) ADVICE FOR GAMESMASTERS

10) OTHER RESOURCES

WELCOME
I have a habit of being a little extra around my comics. I fear this is the most extra thing
I’ve ever done. Alongside creating the comic DIE with Stephanie Hans, I developed the
role-playing game you hold in your hands. Er… figure of speech. “PDF on your hard drive”
doesn’t quite have the same ring.

This RPG creates, in a miniaturized form, your own version of the first arc of DIE. As
such, there’s some possible structural spoilers for the comic. I say “possible” because it
really is your own version of the comic. The comic is available in a handsome trade
edition from all good book and comic shops, whether physical or online. It’s $10, so even
reasonable. I’ve justified this whole ludicrous endeavour to myself as “marketing” so
popping to your retailer of choice and reading it to get the vibe would be an excellent
thing. It looks like this…
I suggest that if you’re not planning on
running the game, you stop reading now.
Going to the Handouts PDF to have a nose
is safe, though I’d only read the player
character sheets. They’re the first ones.
Reading the Rules section is also safe.

There is a third PDF that will be released in

the future called Arcana. This is basically
supplementary weird material. There are
many references to it in the following. The
most prominent one is (no, really, this is a
thing) the “Box of Crap”. For now, consider
them teases.

I’ve never quite done anything like this. I’ve

VOLUME 1

FANTASY
had amazing support from friends, but it’s
HEARTBREAKER still a huge thing. This is a Beta, a public
playtest, so do excuse roughness. I hope
you’ll find it interesting. There are at least
three funny jokes. If you’ve any thoughts,
do write to dierpgplaytest@gmail.com. I’d
love to hear what you make of it.

Thanks for reading and/or playing and/or existing. This will be an adventure.

Kieron Gillen
London
WHAT IS A ROLE-PLAYING GAME?
This is a classical question to answer in
an RPG manual. In the modern age, if
you don’t know, I’d suggest just
googling something like Critical Role and
watching for a few minutes. That. That’s
a role-playing game.
For the majority of the play time, DIE
mostly operates like a D&D model game.
Players state what they want their
characters to do. The GM generally says
what happens. For character actions
which are uncertain, the mechanics are
used to ascertain the success or failure
of that action.
There are some exceptions to the
above, but we'll hold your hand through
them. We love you. We will not abandon
you.
INTRODUCTION TO THE DIE RPG BETA
DIE is a role-playing game (not to be
confused with “the world of Die” where
the game is set). Its standard mode of
play involves between one and five
players (who each play a single
individual) and a Gamesmaster (who
controls the rest of the world, and acts
as a referee). We may shorten
“Gamesmaster” to “GM” if we're feeling
lazy.
DIE’s main mode is horror-fantasy. How
much it leans towards horror and how
much it leans towards fantasy will be
for you to decide, if only through your
perception. One person’s horror is
another person’s fantasy.
Specifically, DIE is a role-playing game
where a group of people find
themselves transported from their
mundane lives to a fantasy world. In this
fantasy world, they have adventures
and try to find their way home – or not.
Upon arriving in the world, each comes
into possession of one of the six titular
dice of the comic and is entirely
transformed into a heroic identity.
This is the structure of many pieces of
pop entertainment, from the 1980s D&D
cartoon to Jumanji. Without the
transformational aspect, it’s the
structure that underlies The Wizard of
Oz and The Lion and The Witch and The
Wardrobe. It also underlies the famously
brutal 1980s fantasy epic The
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the
Unbeliever, so don’t assume those
references mean that it’s fun.
As such, each player generates two
characters. The identity of the person in
the mundane world, and the identity of
the person in the fantasy world. Clearly,
this can be confusing. For clarity, a
Persona is the person in the mundane
world, and the Character is an
individual in the fantasy world. The
Player controls the Persona who
controls a Character.
So for example, Lucy is sitting down to
play. She generates Bob the depressed
IT guy, who is then transformed into a
towering Barbarian Rage Knight in the
world of Die. Lucy is the Player. Bob the
depressed IT guy is the Persona. The
towering Barbarian Rage Knight is the
Character.
It should also be noted that Character
rules apply to all people in the world of
Die, whether they are controlled by
players or the GM. If there’s ever a case
where we need to separate player-
controlled characters and GM-controlled
characters, we use the phrase Avatar
to mean player-controlled characters.
There’s none in the Beta at the moment.
Oh – and we use dice to mean both the
singular and plural of dice. As the
game's called DIE it's going to get
confusing otherwise.
DIE RPG STRUCTURE
A game takes the following structure. I
suggest running it across 2-4 sessions,
though include some guidelines for
running it in a single session or
extending it.
• Players and Gamesmaster (”GM”)
gather and each generate a
persona. This is a social group in the
real world, complete with rivalries,
passions and bitterness. Unlike
many role-playing games, the GM
also creates a persona.
• You then roleplay the personas
sitting around and about to play a
role-playing game. Each persona
then generates a fantasy role-
playing character.
• The personas are magically
transported into the fantasy realm,
and (likely) transformed into the
characters they generated. They
rapidly discover that this has all
been part of a scheme by the
Gamesmaster’s persona – the
Master. The Master has trapped the
players there.
• The personas go on an adventure,
trying to find their way home. On the
way they discover that the only way
to go home is for all the personas to
agree to go home. And dead
personas don’t count. If a decision is
not made, everyone will end up
dying. Erk.
• The story reaches a conclusion as
the personas come to a consensus
on whether to go home or not –
which includes the Gamemaster's
persona. While it is possible that a
peaceful consensus will be reached,
it's equally as likely that the players
will have to fight the Gamemaster's
persona to go home. It's possible
that at least some of the players'
personas will change their opinions,
possibly multiple times. Drama!
Climax!
In other words, this is a core scenario...
but a very flexible core scenario. It is a
dramatic arc rather than a set series of
events. After a certain point, your game
will go in its own radical direction,
before gathering back together in the
climax.
In playtests, we’ve had games which
have just ended in a glorious RPG-
typical brawl. In other playtests, we’ve
had players sit down in a circle and
basically have a therapy session.
Seeing what happens is absolutely the
fun of the game.
BETA? WHAT DO YOU MEAN “BETA”?
It means it’s not finished. Here’s a list of
some things which you may expect to
find in a full DIE RPG which are simply
not in this Beta release.
• Extensive details on the world of
Die as described in the comic. As
in, monsters, areas, locales, etc
• Campaign play
• Character advancement
• Non-player characters of the
core DIE archetypes
• A lot of balancing
• An acceptable level of
playtesting
• A suitably professional time for
proofreading
• A lack of self-indulgence
• Lists that stop when it runs out
of content
• Really, it’s bad at lists
• Oh so bad at lists
At which point you may be
understandably wondering why this
thing is as long as it is. I swear, it’s not
just because we’re bad at lists.
There are a few suggestions for how an
intrepid player may choose to add these
things, if they wish, but fundamentally
this is a work in progress by a
determined if enthusiastic amateur. If
folks respond to it, hopefully we’ll
continue to develop it. Either way, it’s
something I hope you like.
HOW TO READ THIS DOCUMENT
Don’t worry. If you’ve reading this
sentence, you’re doing it right.
There’s three PDFs discussed herein:
• The Manual
• The Handouts
• The Arcana
The Manual is what you’re reading,
which is the core rules. It takes you step
by step through the whole of the game.
We describe how to run the game before
the specific mechanics of the game, and
only interject the rules section when
you need it. The back end of the PDF is
advice for running the specific
character classes, and generalised GM
advice. If you’re not interested in role-
playing games at all, I suspect you’ll get
a giggle out of some of the GM advice.
Much of it is just writing about narrative
structure.
In short: we describe how to run the
game before we describe the specific
mechanics of the game. If you ever feel
you need to know the actual mechanics,
feel free to stop and jump to The Rules
which will explain all of that.
(For those who are familiar with RPGs
and want a brief overview, DIE runs off a
dice-pool system, where you compare
the number of successes rolled in a dice
pool to a target number of successes to
determine results. It has a lot of
elements from narrative RPGs in there,
but it’s got a fairly procedural core. If
you’re not familiar with RPGs, don’t
worry, none of this paragraph should
make any sense whatsoever.)
The Handouts are to be printed out.
They are the character sheets, the
sheets for the GM, and the cheat sheets
which boil the key advice from this
ludicrous document into a few pages.
The Arcana is not released at the time
of writing. It’ll follow at a point in the
future. If it’s not on the diecomic.com
site, it hasn’t been released yet.
It’s a PDF of (for want of a better
phrase) Weird Shit and the more
experimental, less playtested material.
If this is all a Beta, the Arcana is all pre-
Beta. The stranger or more rules-centric
stuff has been put here to avoid
overwhelming people, as well as all the
alternate play modes – including my
thoughts on running it as a one-off or
even trying for a campaign. This is the
section which is likely to be extended.
When its contents may be interesting or
relevant it’s referenced in the main
document.
THE WORLD OF DIE
The personas will be transported to a
fantasy world. Your fantasy world will
be set inside ours, so I’m going to give
you a little of its structure. It's likely your
players, especially in this Beta, will
never know any of this.
Die is a planet-sized 20-sided
polyhedron consisting of 20 equal-sized
triangular planes. It tumbles, though
does not move. Despite this, gravity
appears to operate as it would on Earth.
It is fun to be a physicist in the world of
Die.
Die is suspended inside a sphere that is
half-dark and half-light. As Die tumbles,
we get a day and night cycle – though it
is far from as predictable as on Earth.
Embedded in the dark half of the sphere
are what appear to be stars, but are in
fact cities of the Fair, about one
hundred miles distant. The Fair are
“Elves as designed by William Gibson.”
On the light side we have an enormous
fusion-explosion, looking like a sun.
There are occasionally secondary fusion
explosions, giving Die multiple suns.
The Fallen are beasts that are generally
believed to drop from the sky.
Cybernetic monsters, primarily, but
which can appear in many forms. If the
Fair are elves as designed by Gibson,
the Fallen are orcs auditioning to play a
part in Tetsuo: The Iron Man. The Fallen
have an awful secret which the players
may or may not discover.
There are kingdoms and empires
aplenty on Die but, for our purposes, the
real rulers are the Masters.
Each of the twenty realms has a Master.
Sometimes they're the actual ruler. Just
as often, they're a weird hermit no one
takes seriously. Some are Saruman.
Some are Radagast. Their character
defines the character of the region –
and its rules. They also get to redefine
the rules, assuming they're willing to put
in the effort.
Above them is the Grandmaster of Die.
The Grandmaster gets to meddle with all
the regions of Die. If you were playing a
long campaign on Die, it's likely the
Grandmaster would either be the
player's primary antagonist or their
ultimate patron. Or perhaps both.
That’s the world of Die.
However inside Die are countless pocket
dimensions. Some are the size of a
dungeon. Some are the size of a
universe. All are ruled by a single
Master. The Master in question is the
role the GM’s persona takes when they
enter the world.
It's also worth noting that a Master's
control is considerable, but also
imperfect. A Master's subconscious is
often at play, in a way which can be
instrumental in their self-defeat. In a
world where their wishes can create
things, it's possible they have created
enemies who exist to help the players
bring them down. There is also the
nature of the world of Die itself and the
indirect meddling of the Grandmaster,
both of which can be messing with a
Master’s desires.
Suffice to say: this is in a realm of
fantasy and it's fucking with the Master
as much as the Master is fucking with
the players. Our antagonistic Master has
(knowingly or not) made some manner
of Faustian pact, and these rarely end
well.
At this point you may be wondering
where in Die all these pocket
dimensions are? This is a good question
which I’m not going to answer, which
may imply that its reveal may be a big
deal in a future part of the comic.
To stress the subtext of the above –
while there is a solid fictional
background this is set in, you have
complete freedom to define a sub-
reality every time you play DIE. With the
exception of our character classes, you
don’t need to use any of the elements of
DIE. Each one of these dungeons is its
own hermetically sealed world. Frankly,
that's usually how the Masters prefer it.
It's their little dream home, and they
may not even notice as their dream
home slides into a haunted house.
The word “dungeon” is interesting.
Dungeons are prisons. They’re designed
to keep people trapped inside them. Not
all Masters are aware that this includes
them.
Wait – is this what’s going on with Sol
in the comic?
Do you think I’d spoil the comic a
handful of pages into a free set of RPG
rules? I’m the sort of fool who decides
writing a 70,000-word RPG ruleset for
free is a good idea, not the sort of fool
who’d do that. Or maybe this is all a
double-bluff. Hobbits aren’t half as
sneaksie as writers.
WHAT YOU WILL REQUIRE
• 1 person willing to be GM (i.e. you).
• 1-5 friends or at least people you can
bear being in the same room for a
couple of nights.
• A D20, D12, D10, D8 and a D4.
• One D6 you are okay with doodling
on with a marker.
• A marker for doodling.
• A few more D6. At least 6, and the
more the merrier.
• Tokens for the Master’s Cheat
Tokens. Coins for the Neo.
• Pen and paper for everyone is
useful.
• A printout of the Handouts.
EXTRA CREDIT
The Box of Old Crap (see Arcana).
BEFORE THE SESSION
Read these rules, including familiarizing
yourself with all the archetypes'
character sheets. Invite players and
arrange times. Good luck. That’s the
hard part.
While the urge may be to go for all six
players, be aware the game asks a lot of
the GM to run all the archetypes. A game
with three players and a GM works
great. I’ve also run it with just one
player. Also be aware that, with a full
cast, to give everyone enough spotlight
time, you’ll most likely to want to run it
for three sessions rather than two.
I’m playing online – can I play the
game?
Uh-huh. See the Advice for
Gamesmasters section for some
guides.
I want to play with more than five
players – can I?
Oh, look at the popular one with all the
friends. We’re not jealous.
Sure! See the section in Advice for
Gamesmasters called “The Highlander
Variant”.
To be honest, I’d suggest not, at least
for your first game. More players means
less spotlight time for everyone, less
chance for each character to be
explored, and a lot more work for you,
the trusty GM.
What’s this Box of Old Crap for extra
credit? I don’t want to go to the
Arcana – it scares me.
It is the sound of your friend’s, the game
designer’s, heart breaking as he moves
the rules for them to the supplementary
section as it’s not actually a core part of
the game any more. In short: create a
box of random mainly RPG-related stuff
which you pretend is the actual game
Sol made, and then you use its contents
as a glorified tarot deck to influence the
game. It’s a fun thing to do, but really is
non-core.
PRE-GAME CHAT
When people are ready to play, sit
everyone down in the play area. I would
suggest around a table and perhaps on
chairs. Making one player stand is
generally a bad idea, unless you are a
strong proponent of Player ShamingTM.
If you have the Box of Crap, either hide it
or have it suspiciously prominent on the
table. Discourage anyone from touching
it. Try and build up its odd mystery.
Firstly, explain the game’s basic setup.
DIE involves a group of people gathering
together to play a role-playing game.
You’ll generate a social group of real-
world friends. Stress that the game
rewards messy flawed people with real
needs. You will then play those
personas, sitting down to play an actual
role-playing game. And then they’re
going to go on an adventure… and, at
the end of the session, come to a climax
where our personas will grow and
change by this experience. Or not.
Secondly, you should ask what sort of
things they like to do in a role-playing
game. As in, what sorts of abilities they
want to have. This should be as broad
as possible – do they want to fight? Do
they want to wield spells? Both?
Neither? Is there a character from
fiction they find appealing? “I'm up for
whatever seems good for the personas
we generate or the group needs” is also
a perfectly good answer. Encourage
them to be honest now, because later,
when they're playing their personas,
they may end up answering dishonestly.
For example, a persona may loathe the
idea of being a wizard, but someone
who hates magic becoming a spell
caster obviously has a lot of potential
drama.
Thirdly, you should discuss about the
tone of game they’re going for. DIE
basically has two natural poles – on one
side, adventure and on the other, horror.
How much do they want this to be a
game about a character’s emotions
versus their adventures? If this was a
movie, what rating would it have?
Discuss how many sessions you plan
the game to go for. The rules as written
assume at least two sessions, but there
are ways to run it in a single session or
expanding it to as many sessions as
you think interesting. This is to make
sure that everyone is on the same page
with the same expectations, and also
lets you tailor what comes next.
Remember: you are also allowed to have
opinions and preferences too. Your idea
of fun matters as much as anyone
else’s in the room.
Fourthly, talk about some possible
themes the game may involve. This is to
make sure people are fine with them
and can delineate their boundaries. If
people have reservations, you can
tweak the game away from them in play.
With the setup of this Beta, it’ll likely
include issues from childhood – any
limits there? The Neo can have themes
of addiction. The Dictator has themes of
consent. Does anyone have any
boundaries there? Respect people’s
choices. Say your own.
Fifthly, introduce the X-card. Put one
card (or more) with an “X” drawn on it in
easy reach of all the players.
If any player (including the GM) touches
it, it means they are uncomfortable with
the current topic or subject and we
should take a step back and change
direction. It does not mean asking
questions about what the element is, or
naming it, though some people will say
(e.g. “This is too violent for me.”). The X-
card can be activated for any reason,
even minor ones (character names
which might connect to a bad memory
for one of the players is a good example
– the best low-level example I’ve heard
is X-carding a persona whose name is
identical to that of an ex.).
The X-card does not mean someone has
fucked up. It means someone is
uncomfortable, and we should be polite.
The X-card was conceived by John
Stavropoulos, and the original
documentations is here:
http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg
In the GM’s advice section there are
some more safety suggestions to
consider, but I consider the X-card a
bare minimum. This is a game that can
go to some dark places if the group
wishes.
PERSONA GENERATION
Here we generate the personas – the
real-world people whose personalities
drive the game.
First question: this is a group of people.
What is this group of people? What
connects them?
They are a group of adults who were
friends when they were young, who find
themselves gathered together years
later, and someone suggests they play
a role-playing game. Explain it to the
players something like this…
“You are a group of friends who played
a normal role-playing game at school
who, years later, have found yourself
gathered together to play a game for old
times' sake. We're going to now work out
who you are, how you know each other,
and why you’ve got back together.”
This is broad enough to include lots of
different sorts of groups (for example,
playing 21-year-olds visiting home at
Christmas is a very different game than
everyone being 55-year-olds back in
town for a funeral – and equally
different from a game where some
characters are old and some are young)
while also having characters who've
had enough adult experiences (both
positively and negatively) to impact the
game. It also leads to a wide variety of
different sorts of groups – the drama
group’s D&D game suggests a different
social dynamic to the maths club’s.
To stress: the game they played was not
a magical game in any way. It was just a
normal (probably) teenage game.
Next, proceed to ask leading questions
to the players to decide upon the key
facts. Encourage players to ask each
other questions as they occur to them.
Essentially, it's a process of fishing for
information.
The aim of the questions is threefold:
1. So the players know who their own
personas are.
2. So the other players know who each
persona is.
3. To provide the GM with the raw
material for generating the
adventure.
The first allows a player to make
meaningful decisions about their
persona. The second means that other
players are not confused by another
player’s persona. Both are important in
a story-based game. Encourage players
to ask other players questions about
their personas. If they don't, you should.
The third is for you, and shouldn’t be
explicitly mentioned to the players, and
it is explained at length shortly. See
“Your Purpose For Asking These
Questions”.
Further details to the personas can (and
will) be added during play, but once
you've got the basics we’re looking for
down (as described below), you should
proceed. Generally, a gut feeling that
“This seems like a fun, developed,
messy and believable social group!” is
your tell. Messy is key. Once you get a
character to a point of messiness,
asking further questions may actually
resolve their issues. That’s counter-
productive. Facing their issues is what
this game is about.
I normally spend around an hour on this
stage, if players are enjoying it. If
they’re not, cut it short.
The following are some areas a group
may wish to be prompted to think about.
Some of it is less ‘questions’ and more
‘lines of thought for them to explore’. It
is likely you will bounce between
multiple sections as ideas occur. It's not
a checklist.
Players should be encouraged to go
back and edit earlier ideas if they have
better ones, as long as everyone agrees
with where it ends up. It's likely players'
ideas will develop as they progress.
Here’s some examples of types of
questions. They’re written assuming the
players knew each other as kids and are
now getting back together as adults.
How did the personas’ old RPG group
get together?
This is likely the first question you’ll
want to know – what is the shared
connection? The football team is a
different set of inspirations from the
chess club. How do the majority of the
group know each other?
How did you know each other?
Was there a shared social activity?
Were you all at the same school?
What was the school like? Posh? Run-
down? Rural? Urban?
Did you all go to the same school?
This is also a question that can be
useful to seed by presenting the players
with a list of options for the social
activity that connected the personas.
For example…
School Orchestra
Computer Club
Family Group
Drama Society
Punk Band’s Spare Activity
Detention Survivors
Football Team’s Guilty Secret
Girl Guides/Boy Scouts/Other Teenage
Paramilitary Organisation
Church Group
Hospital Ward
Summer Camp
Online Group Who Never Met IRL
Just a Typical Bunch of Loveable Geeks
Actual examples from playtests: a
detention group; a close family who
played RPGs; guests and attendees of a
con; ex-members of a third-rate
mathrock band; work colleagues; a
Buffy fan forum.
What was the RPG like?
You don’t need to ask a lot of these at
this stage, but there’s two you should
consider. The first is essential.
What was the name of the world your
game was set in?
What classes did people play?
Who GMed?
Don’t ask too many questions on this.
For those who don’t know the standard
way a DIE game works, being too
attentive in this section makes people
know it’s related to the plot in a key
way. I spend a maximum of 10% of my
persona generation time in this area.
Maximum.
Core Persona
Presented with a blank page, a group
can be intimidated to get started. One
method is to prompt one strong
persona, who the others can align
themselves around. Once one piece is in
place, the rest is easier.
Now they've grown up, who's the most
successful persona? What do they do?
Were any of you particularly famous as
children? Infamous? What for?
Actual examples from playtests: an
extremely famous author at a con; the
one member of the band who got big.
The Reason for the Game
The personas are about to sit down and
play an RPG. It's important to work out
why.
The game is happening because the
personas are all together for a reason.
What's the reason?
However, by this point it's likely the GM
may have ideas of their own for this. In
which case, they may wish to suggest
things. These are useful if the players
need ideas too, of course. Here's a list of
examples:
Everyone's home for Christmas (or any
other holiday).
It's the night before one of the group's
wedding.
Someone close has died, and this is
something people agreed to do at the
wake.
A group holiday and someone thinks it's
a good activity for an evening.
It's gaming night! They always game!
Actual examples from playtests: a game
session at a con; the night before a
wedding with the groom wanting to
finally run a game; an anniversary of the
death of a band’s drummer; a corporate
orientation briefing; a playtest of a new
prototype at a games company.
The Persona Then
When we've established the rough
shape of the group, we add more meat
to individual personas.
Has anyone got an idea of what sort of
kid their persona was? If so, tell us a bit
about them.
What was your best subject? Your
worst? How smart were you?
Were you bullied?
Were your parents divorced?
What did you think you'd be when you
grew up?
Did you have any hobbies? Music?
What did you hate about yourself?
The Inter-Persona Relationships
This adds meat to feelings between the
group. Especially when you're using a
strong Core Persona, a lot of the
relationships will end up being defined
according to that.
Are you related to any of the personas?
Who was your best friend? How did you
meet? How did they hurt you?
Who were you most jealous of?
Were you in love with anyone? Lust?
The Persona Now
This shows what's changed in a
persona's life since childhood. The gap
between what you thought you were
and could achieve, and what you
actually did achieve is key to DIE.
What do you do now? Do you enjoy it?
Are you married? Divorced? Multiple
divorces? If so, who to?
Do you have kids? Did you want kids?
Have you been seriously ill?
Has anyone you loved died?
How do you think about your teenage
years? How do you think about your
time playing RPGs?
Do you keep in contact with any of the
friends? If so, who?
If someone makes a movie of this game,
which actor plays your persona?
Persona vs Persona
If a group seems to lack strong internal
conflicts, some Gamesmasters will
prefer to try and generate some drama.
Some players will respond very badly to
these aggressive sorts of questions.
Sometimes only one leading question
will be enough to encourage other
players to start thinking along these
lines. The “Core Persona” questions
actually work a little like this, except by
increasing the profile of one persona. If
one persona is famous, that implies
other people will have feelings about
that, which often are not positive.
So, you say you're siblings. What made
you hate your brother?
Who do you blame for your parents’
divorce?
For more on this see “Hardball versus
Softball questions” later.
Possible Complexities
If someone is not really seeming into the
group setup, maybe they would be
interested in being an outsider.
Did any of you meet this lot after they
left school? If so – who do you know?
When did you meet? A lover of one of
them? Perhaps even a child?
Were you at the school, but not in the
social group back then? If not, why not?
Did you want to play and they wouldn't
let you? Or did you despise the group?
Or both?
Random Crap
The game runs off detritus as well as big
emotional stuff. Don't be afraid to ask
trivia. Even if you don't use it, if players
are freezing up, this can loosen them up
and make it clear that it's actually us
having fun.
Who's your favourite author? Band?
Film? TV show?
What's your favourite colour?
What's your dream holiday location?
Celebrity crush? Then and now?
If you were a character in Friends, who
would you be? What about Game of
Thrones? The Good Place?
Making Sure the Players Understand
How to Play Their Personas
This is all useful stuff for players to
know their motivations and feelings
(and for you for the actual game), but
it’s worth checking in to see if they
know how to role-play in their voice.
How do you think you come across to
people you meet?
Want to try and be your persona for a
sentence?
What do people notice about the way
you speak?
SPEEDING UP GENERATION
The above methodology gives a lot of
flexibility, but also asks a lot of both
players and GM. There is nothing as
intimidating as a blank sheet of paper.
As such, you may consider explicitly
seeding some key elements. If you
decide the general age of the group, you
limit things considerably. If you want to
really limit things, also pre-establish the
sort of person the core persona is. For
example, saying one person is a famous
novelist will mean there is a backbone of
“Fiction” and “Jealousy/Pride” for both
players and GM to hang ideas off.
In short, starting with “21-year-olds ex-
gaming group just back from university”
and “70-year-olds at the funeral of a
famous footballer friend from school”
gives players and GM much more
guidance. For the GM, it also lets you
start to think about what sort of game
you want to run earlier.
If you really want to shorten generation,
narrow it even further.
YOUR PURPOSE FOR ASKING THESE
QUESTIONS
The players will be thinking this is just
generating someone they get to play.
This is correct. However, for you, you
are looking for story elements to use in
your adventure.
Now, this is going to have to go into
some theory of what the game is trying
to do, and how to think about what
you're trying to do. This stuff is usually
buried in the “GM Advice” section of a
traditional RPG manual, but we need to
foreground this so you actually
understand why they're doing all the
things I'm asking them to do.
What you are doing when they're
answering questions? You are writing
down all the interesting facts for each
character.
Put this down in a list beneath each
character. Think broadly, including
details both large and small.
For example, for one player you may
have scribbled down...
Divorced wife, bitter
Disappointed by children (two – one boy,
7; one girl 9)
Red Dwarf fan
Keeps on asking for white wine, but not
Sauvignon Blanc
Accountant
Aston Villa Season Holder
While players are talking stuff up, this is
what you're looking for. As you can see,
the above includes details from many
different lines of questions and includes
both large and small details.
I strongly recommend using a large
piece of paper for this. A4 is good. Have
lots of room to write down anything you
think relevant, on a single sheet, so you
can see it all together. Flicking between
multiple sheets of paper is just going to
distract you. If you’re like me, it’s likely
your notes will be a mess – see the
“Example Sheets” section – and you’ll
likely want to compile these notes into a
more accessible format between
games.
Why are you doing this? These are the
core details you're going to use to
personalise the adventure you're about
to generate. To remind you of the basic
structure of a game of DIE, it basically
goes...
• Generate personas. GM writes down
details.
• Personas transported to the world of
Die.
• A series of encounters in Die which
are generated according to various
methods we present which are
personalised by the personas’
details.
• A final encounter in Die where they
confront the person who kidnapped
them, and decide whether to go
home or not.
See this structure? Now you get why
you're looking for details. As you
continue into Preparing the Second
Session you'll see how these elements
you've noted down now will fuel the
adventures. There's more in the Advice
for Gamesmasters section on how to
integrate persona details into your
adventure too.
THE BIG THING YOU'RE LOOKING FOR: A
PERSONA'S CORE DRIVE
This is the key thing you should ideally
be looking for in every persona.
In short: if there is something they are
lacking in the real world, this is likely
something they will be tempted with in
the fantasy world.
The questions are all hiding a real
question, the one which we will never
mention in generation, but which is
implicit in all the answers: what is the
thing which the persona would fuck
over their peers for? What would they
die for? What would they kill for?
Some players will present what you
recognise as a core drive instantly,
while others will require more
prompting. Some players will be entirely
resistant to it... in which case, don't
worry. It's possible that a desire may
emerge in play. If at least some of the
party clearly have a dark unsatisfied
desire, that's sufficient. You may even
only need one player to have one. After
all, the more well-balanced personas
are going to have to deal with the
melodrama of their fucked-up friends.
It's also possible that the whole group
will be entirely resistant to any of the
above. As such, the game will end up as
a simple adventure with some emotional
beats, climaxing in the party facing
down the “friend” who dragged them
into this nightmare world.
That's fine. This is a great story arc. If
your players don't want to play a dark
game of personal temptation, that's
cool. The drama will primarily be how the
party interacts with the world rather
than how the party interacts with each
other. Once again, that's okay, and you
never know. Later we'll see that there
are character-based reasons as well as
persona-based reasons for a party to
butt heads and create drama.
The point of the game of DIE is that it
moves between modes gracefully. With
people who take it incredibly seriously,
the game could climax with a huge
outpouring of emotions between the
personas. With players who are in the
mood for something lighter, it becomes
a pop adventure where you kill the
baddie and go home. Either is fine. There
is no failure as long as the players are
enjoying themselves.
However, you can alter the sort of game
you'll be playing by how you approach
the questions...
HARDBALL vs SOFTBALL QUESTIONS
Left to their own devices, and given
open questions, it's possible that the
players will create a wholesome and
well-balanced group. People (especially
new players) tend to be sweet. If so, the
game is unlikely to involve much inter-
party resentment. At this point, you may
wish to make the questions harder.
Ideally, this builds on players' previous
suggestions. For example, if a player
says their persona screwed up their
exams, you could ask “And who do you
blame for this? Maybe one of your
siblings?” They can still answer
negatively, but this sharper form of
questioning may prompt more useful
schisms and antagonisms.
You may wish to go further and
generate complexities. If two personas
say they were dating, you may ask “So
why did you split up?” They say they
didn't? “It must have been hard when
you realised that one of your friends
was also in love with you though...” If no
player jumps in saying that they're the
friend who's in love with them,
remember the GM has a persona and
can seed this stuff too.
It's also possible you will only need to
ask a single sharp question to make the
group realise that having drama could
be fun.
If you want a more friendly adventure,
angle towards the soft questions. If
you're looking for something where
internal party emotional strain is key,
lean more towards the hard questions.
You’ll also want to ask more questions
about people’s failings and weaknesses
so you can tempt them.
THE IN-EMERGENCY-BREAK-GLASS
QUESTION
Sometimes you can’t be subtle. If you
want to get a core drive, you can just
ask the question:
“Why does your persona hate their life?”
If they decline to give an answer, this is
their Hard No to having a conflicted
character. If not, whatever they say is
the core drive.
THE GM'S PERSONA
While doing all the above, you should be
also be developing about your own
persona. Your persona is the antagonist
to the players, at least initially. Your aim
there is to look for a motivation for this
persona to drag all their friends into a
fantasy world and strand them there.
Early on, you are likely to use yourself
as an example to set the tone,
answering the questions to show how
it's done. As the questions proceed, you
should step back, especially when
asking questions akin to “What did your
persona do when they left school?”
Your persona is allowed to be a little
more mysterious. It's unlikely players
will notice or care, as GM personas are
always viewed as less interesting or
relevant than player ones. Players are
an amazingly self-centred bunch, bless
'em.
At some time before the start of the
scenario, the GM's persona was
contacted by an extra-dimensional
intelligence (Most would call it a demon.
In any traditional way, it’s not.) and was
offered an opportunity. They took it. If
they transport a group of people to the
realm of Die, they will get a pocket
dimension that will fulfil certain
fantasies ... as long as they all stay
there. It’s likely that the Master doesn’t
quite believe it either.
If a motivation for your persona does
not present itself in persona generation,
simply grab one of these robust
standards and run with it...
A return to their youth.
A chance at enacting revenge upon the
people who made their childhood a
misery.
To be united with a dead lover.
Just being really sickeningly rich.
Essentially almost everything is “a
fantasy of what they lack in reality, if
they are willing to give up reality to
achieve it.”
The level of sympathy you wish to have
for the antagonist should dictate the
choice as well.
To choose “To be united with a dead
lover” as an example – “It's the only way
I can see the person I loved again” is
likely to be at least a little sympathetic.
“I really wanted to fuck an army of
Marilyn Monroe clones” is less so.
Think about the specifics of the deal in
relation to the group – what is it
specifically about this group? Is there
someone specific in this group that the
demon wants them to bring and the rest
are just filling up numbers? Or could it
have been anyone? This all filters into
the nature of the antagonistic persona.
If they could have brought anyone, and
they brought these people specifically,
it implies a real hatred for them, for
example.
Do not think too much about why these
people specifically at this point. This will
be discovered in play later. If it's not
(and it's more likely not to be discovered
than discovered) that works too. It is a
horror game, and the gaps in their
knowledge is where their imagination
runs wild.
Also, do not overly worry if you don’t
know everything about your persona at
this point. If you have a solid idea, that’s
great. If you know nothing, you can
conceal it – and you have the time until
the next session to think on it. You’ll
likely develop the persona’s motivation
significantly in that time as you develop
the adventure.
Actual examples from playtests: a
jealous contemporary of a famous
author who never broke through who
wants the famous author’s career; a
closeted gay groom who wants all his
siblings to come to a better fantasy
world as he can’t face coming out to his
parents; a band’s biggest fan who just
wants the other persona’s band to get
back together; a corporate AI head who
is consuming those who are brought to
Die to make an AI that can make a
higher form of art; a con runner who kills
four con goers ever con to maintain his
life; a werewolf fanfic writer who wants
to live in her fanfic universe because
she can’t risk real emotional intimacy
with her friends.
PERSONA GENERATION FLOWCHART
If you’re wondering whether to wrap up
persona generation and move on, have
a look at this flowchart…
You will be asking further questions
during the game. You don’t need to
know everything, just enough.
FINISHING PERSONA GENERATION
Write each persona's name and
pronouns on a piece of paper and put it
in front of each player's seat as a
reminder of all their persona’s names.
It'll make the next bit much easier.
Then encourage the players to leave the
room, make a tea, go to the toilet, or
whatever. Inform them that when they
return to the table and sit down,
everything they say will (unless
expressly stated otherwise) be in-
character as their personas.
Yes, they will be role-playing people
about to play a role-playing game.
EXAMPLE SHEETS
To give a concrete example of note-
keeping, here’s the notes I have taken in
two games.
Both are written on an A4 sheet. This is
my handwriting. Your handwriting will
likely be better.
The first game is a group of three
players. This game was played in a
single session, so we spent less time
generating personas. The game was
about four siblings gathering to play the
night before the Gamesmaster’s
persona – Duncan – got married.
The second example is from a two-game
session. This game was based around a
band who nearly made it, gathering ten
years after the original drummer died in
a car crash. This is four players plus the
GM. This group highly enjoyed
developing the history of their band, so
there are considerable notes about their
entire history.
Between sessions, these are the notes I drew from there…
Jessica – (MINK) – F
Photographer. Then events, now weddings.
Hot art girl at school. Still noticeably hot.
Dated Hunter from school. Dumped when
band split.
A little bitter over his success (Sk8r boy
villain) in the "I could have been there."
Minor Instagram influencer.
Love Aesthetics – interested in visuals.
One kid, 5, with Kieron – Phillipa or
Bonham? (Accidental kid almost
immediately after going out, staying
together for kids, not happy)
Amethyst – (SARAH) – F(?)
Bassist + lyricist
Grumpy. Negative pessimist. Shy, reserved.
Does own material on Soundcloud,
anonymous.
Python webcoder-HTML.
Hero – Brian Eno/Philip Glass.
Co-wrote song with Hunter which was one
of Hunter's first big hits. Quietly resentful
over it.
"Coin-operated Boi"
Skirmish – the band.
Formed at School in 2007, Hastings.
Mathrock noise band. "The Hastings'
Battles".
In 2012, when driving to Reading from
Leeds to play there, were involved in car-
crash. Drummer "Animal" Dies. Split shortly
afterwards.
2013-2017: Hunter joins rival (but slightly
bigger) band as singer, who proceed to go
Franz-Ferdinand-ish big.
2018 – Hunter working on his solo material.
Everyone gets together on anniversary on
Animal's death in local metal/indie pub
where they drank.
Even for those who can read my
handwriting, you may be wondering
where some of the other elements came
"Hunter" (Gareth) – (ADLAI) – M
Singer.
Ex-boyfriend of Jessica.
Solo material is uninspiring. "Self-
indulgent". Afraid has no ideas.
Huge Ego – imposter syndrome.
Played Jules Holland – annoyed by piano.
Other band on way down when split.
Bowie is his hero.
Jem aka Gemma – (ALEX) – F
Guitarist (Synth Curious)
Wants to be in Hunter's new band.
3 Months from 30. Achieved nothing.
Blogs.
Oscar Wilde is his hero.
Works in chain off-licence. Drinks too much.
Enthusiasm – manic, driven. Lloyd from
Phonogram-y.
Selected Elves as a race as they are
"Immortal".
John – (KIERON) – M
Drummer of other local band.
Auditioned to replace Animal but just too
busy, too metal.
P.E. Teacher.
Arranged event.
Boyfriend of Jessica.
"Animal" – dead drummer no details, bar
name.
from – these are things I found written
on their character sheets, which hint
towards their desires. Having a gap
between sessions can help like this, for
when you’re really nosy.
I have highlighted the ones which I
consider to be a persona’s core
element…
Jessica: Her life is boring. She feels
she’s missing out.
Hunter: Fears he is a fake. Worse: knows
that he is a fake.
Amethyst: Wants to be seen as a genius.
Jem: Feels life has been a waste.
And John is secretly the band’s biggest
fan and will do anything to hear them
play again. He’s got them back together
for that.
It’s worth stressing that in practice I
was entirely mistaken about Amethyst’s
desire, but the three personas were
enough to base it around, and Amethyst
had plenty of drama anyway.
CHARACTER GENERATION
BEFORE PEOPLE RETURN TO THE TABLE
As people are getting their cups of tea
or whatever, you’re making a decision.
Namely, what character class each
persona will be playing. This is based on
the desires each player expressed in
the pre-game chat, what character their
persona seems to suggest and a little
GM fiat (for example, some classes are
more complicated than others).
In this playtest, the Master is reserved
for the Gamesmaster. The present rules
simply don’t work for a player.
These are useful guidelines...
Dictator/D4 = Lighter warriors. Non-
technical rogues. Bards. Diplomats, god
bless them. Do not give to anyone you
think doesn’t understand the
seriousness of a character who messes
with people’s emotions.
Fool/D6 = Warriors, especially martial
arts characters, swashbucklers or other
relatively lightly armoured sorts. This is
arguably the simplest archetype to play,
so useful to give to the least
experienced player.
Emotion Knight/D8 = Heavy duty
warriors, knights, paladins and
berserkers. Any persona who seems to
have a very strong relationship with a
single emotion.
Neo/D10 = Thieves, rogues, hackers or
cybernetic warriors, especially if they
like pets. Anyone whose real-life job is
technical.
Godbinder/D12 = Cleric archetypes.
Demonologists. Magic users. Anyone
who really likes role-playing.
However, it should be noted that all
archetypes can be twisted into most
character classes. Neos tend towards
filling rogue-like roles... but they can
also be a brutal cybernetic warrior.
While the GM does distribute the
character sheets, you needn’t keep the
players out entirely. The reason for
secrecy is to create a magical moment
when they get given the dice. It’s no sin
to check in on a player and make sure
they’re okay with playing a character
when you’re all away from the table, or
to clarify what bits of an archetype
you’ll want to play up or down. “I was
thinking of giving you the Dictator – are
you up for something like that?” or “I’m
considering the Neo – if I do, shall I play
down the addiction reading?”
There is a lot more about this decision in
the Running the Archetypes section
later in the PDF.
When you’ve made your decision, get
back to the table.
STARTING THE GAME
As players arrive at the table, they
should talk in character as their
persona. The GM is talking in the voice of
the persona they've generated. Let
people chat and loosen up, and
encourage conversation. For example,
ask players about recent life events in
their personas’ lives.
The GM's persona should feel free to
lead the conversation, based upon the
shared characters developed above.
“What happened to that person you
were seeing at university?” would be a
good example of a line of conversation,
or “How are the kids” or any normal
adult chat. Frankly, “What are you binge
watching?” is a perennial dinner party
chat fave.
Be aware that the setting for the
imaginary game you’ve chosen can
impact it intensely. Role-playing a scene
in a corporate board-room creates
different expectations than role-playing
things at a quiet dinner party – and even
more so, if you’re meant to be in a pub
after-hours.
This should be extended as long as folks
find entertaining. The first session tends
to be a shorter session, so you have
time to have fun. Let people get used to
roleplaying their personas – including
you. When the explanation of rules
happens, it becomes a little trickier to
maintain their personas, so let everyone
bed in.
When everyone is settled in, if you have
one, get out the Box of Crap.
Dump it on the table, and say the
following – adapted to your characters'
voice a little...
“Hey – do you remember that thing back
in the 1990s? Those kids who were
playing an RPG and just disappeared.
Mum went up to check on them, and
they were gone. For two years.
You must remember! Six went. Two
years later five of the six turned up.
None of them ever talked about what
happened...
Well you know what?
This is the game they were playing. I got
it off Ebay.
You guys up for it? It's really neat.”
Let the players chat. When all personas
have bought in enough to at least sit
and play – though, it should be stressed,
the personas may clearly grouse about
doing it – progress to developing their
in-game RPG characters.
WHAT IF THEY’RE NOT GAME FOR THE
GAME?
Some personas will be up for it. Others
will show some form of reticence. Others
may reject playing outright, for reasons
such as taste or superstition. If a
persona is threatening to leave the
room, ask them – out of character –
“Good: but why do you end up staying?”
A player can think of any reason they
wish, or ask players for ideas. The
persona relationships already
developed will likely be the source of
this, but it's possible a new twist could
be added. If the player is stuck, the GM
should give suggestions. Here's a few to
get you started...
You're in love with someone and if you
leave you may not see them for another
decade.
You don't trust another persona to be
left alone in case they reveal a secret.
You think another persona is rich
enough to lend you the money you need
to pay your debts.
You're an egomaniac and just wanted
the attention to threaten to leave.
In practice, in all my playtests, I’ve
never had to use this.
HANDING OUT THE CHARACTER SHEETS
When you've made this decision, pull the
dice out of the box. Catch the players’
attention. You then distribute the
specific dice for each class to the
specific player.
Hold out each dice towards each player,
lock their eyes and intensely recite...
This is your die. There is no other die like
this in this whole game. This is special.
This is yours.
And put it in their hand.
The Fool should be given their dice last,
with the slightest tweaked line...
This is your die. This is exactly the same
as every other die in the game. There's
nothing special about this die at all.
It's likely this will get a laugh, and it will
take a while for the Fool to realise what
they get to do with their dice (as
described on their sheets).
Hold up the D20 with a flourish, and
say…
And this one is mine.
From this point, encourage people not to
roll their own dice. Be deliberately
twitchy over it, almost as if you expect
them to explode. “They're kind of
antiques” is a good example of the sort
of excuse you may use. Imagine how
you may act if you thought the dice
were made of plastic explosive.
Distribute the character sheet to each
player. The sheets explain the
archetypes, but feel free to give them
more information – the section Running
the Archetypes includes more on this,
including how best to explain them in a
simple, iconic nugget form.
Work your way through the sheet. To
start with, ask each player to read the
flavour text at the start of the first
column, ending with the Fool.
Each player goes through their sheet,
selecting their abilities, statistics and
customisations from each section in the
sheet.
The trickiest part is “Stats”. Here, you
distribute six scores (4, 4, 3, 3, 2 and 2)
into the six abilities. Explain to the
players what statistics are used for
what sort of challenges. For example,
that Strength is normally used for melee
combat, and Dexterity for ranged
combat.
Some players are likely to ask for a more
detailed rules explanation, and you can
give them the basics – as in, you roll the
number of dice equal to whatever the
relevant stat is and each 4+ is a
success. If the number of successes
rolled equals or exceeds a difficulty
number the GM sets, they succeed. If
they don't, they fail. In other words,
bigger numbers in abilities are good. It's
not worth going in too deep yet, and tell
them they'll pick up a bunch as they
play. The basics are also explained on
the sheets.
At this point you should be filling in the
Master sheet too. A player may be
surprised the GM gets a character.
Explain that this is just one of the cool
things about this game. If you want, you
can decide your Master's abilities before
the game starts, but you filling in the
sheet along with the players gives you a
way to demonstrate each step along
with them.
When all characters are generated, ask
the players to pick up their class dice
and then close their eyes.
Next, tell all the players to lower their
dice to the table, and then –
simultaneously – release them.
Wait a little while. Tell them to open their
eyes.
Tell them they are somewhere
completely different.
Welcome to DIE.
The proper adventure starts, and you
should read the next section, “Into The
Dungeon”, which explains what
happens when the adventure is running
in terms of events for the rest of the
first session. There’s some mechanics
referenced loosely, but you likely will be
fine without them. If at any point you
want to know how the actual rules work,
skip on into a main section we have
called – after some careful
consideration – The Rules and then
come back here.
INTO THE DUNGEON
Up to this point, things have basically
been on rails. Flexible rails, often
created by all the players, including the
GM. However, after this point, things can
go in many directions. What holds it
together is the underlying structure.
Printing out the DIE GM Cheat Sheet to
see this structure may be helpful, but
here’s a breakdown of the core events…
PERSONA GENERATION
Keep a list of each persona’s major
motivations and minor details.
CHARACTER GENERATION
The personas generate their characters
using the character sheets.
FIRST ENCOUNTER
• The Master brings them to the world
of DIE.
• The Master grabs the D20 and
teleports away.
• Encourage each persona to pick up
their magical dice and so transform
into their character.
• A brief combat to introduce mood
and tone.
• A reveal that they are in a fantasy
world…
–- END OF SESSION ONE --
BETWEEN SESSIONS
Further encounters are generated.
Encounters are ideally grown from
personas’ interests and motivations, as
presented later.
SESSION TWO (AND MORE)
The players move through the prepared
(or improvised) encounters.
FINAL ENCOUNTER
• The players confront the Master.
• The players either go home or don't.
We’ll break them down as we continue.
“WAIT – WHO AM I PLAYING NOW?”
In the previous section where you all sat
around the table generating characters,
you are playing the Master character.
The second we arrive in Die, you segue
to a traditional GM’s role of describing
the environment, the results of the
players’ action, and role-playing anyone
they meet. The Master is then a
character you play, like any other
character in the world.
In the GM advice section there’s quite a
bit more about how “who players/GM
are playing?” can work. In short: some
people play as their persona for the
whole game. Some people don’t. There’s
no right answer. Whatever folks feel
comfortable with is great.
THE FIRST ENCOUNTER
The personas will find themselves,
dressed exactly like their personas
were, carrying whatever they possess,
in a different world.
The personas are in a room almost
identical to the room the personas were
sitting in to play the game. It's the same
room, but awfully wrong, just a little off.
Perhaps the windows are sealed over.
Perhaps the colour palettes are off, as if
a gothic Instagram filter is making
reality terrible. Perhaps their breath
freezes in the air. Perhaps blood creeps
like a snake across the floor. Nightmare
imagery. This is not a good place to be.
The only brightly coloured objects in the
room are the dice. They lie where the
players left them.
They are still their personas. They are
just humans in a weird place. Stress
this.
Before anyone has a chance to react,
say that the GM's persona grabs their
own dice. Hey, it's almost as if they
knew this was going to happen.
Instantly, they transform into their
character. Describe what they look like
now – extrapolate from whatever you’ve
put on your sheet, with the volume up.
Use your imagination. This is likely your
main antagonist.
I stress: make sure the players realise
that your persona grabbed their dice
and then transformed. This is the main
detail they need to realise. You may
need to hint at it later if the players
haven’t realised.
The Master perhaps says a few words.
This is the first time you get to show
what kind of antagonist they'll be. If it's
someone who the players will have at
least some sympathy with, you may
lean it soft (“I'm sorry, I wish it didn't
have to be like this”). If it's someone
with a grudge against the players, you
may show that (“This serves you selfish
bastards right”). If your game is going to
be campy as balls, this is where you will
just do an evil cackle (“Muhahahhaha.”)
Honestly, saying absolutely nothing is a
strong choice, especially if you’ve yet to
decide your Master’s motivation.
They then disappear. Take a Cheat
Token (as explained on the Master’s
sheet) and toss it over the board. If
anyone asks what it is, say it's him
spending some of his resources to do
what he did. Cheating is explained on
your Master’s character sheet. Any time
the Master breaks the rules in an
extreme way, they spend a token.
Now, leave the players for a few
seconds looking at the environment. If
they're having fun role-playing the
confusion of panic, do feel free to let it
linger. If you want to get a move on, the
Fallen arrive. I think of the Fallen as
undead cybernetic orcs, as if they’re the
offspring of old 1980s TV had sex with a
vat of meat. You can twist them any
way you wish. You’ll find statistics for
some basic Fallen later. Have one lesser
Fallen for each of the players, and one
more powerful sort. So if there's three
players, one major fallen and three
normal ones.
The Fallen seem hungry. The Fallen want
to kill and eat the players.
AGAINST THE FALLEN
How the Fallen enter depends on the
nature of the room the personas were
role-playing in in the real world. Perhaps
they slide in via the wall, or a sink, or the
lights or…
If the players have not yet grabbed their
dice, this will likely encourage them to
do so. Ask everyone what they want to
do. This is their one chance to grab their
dice before the combat starts.
At this point, combat starts, as
described in The Rules. If the players
have not grabbed their dice see “Ways
Players May Be Shits At This Point”.
WHEN A PLAYER GRABS THEIR DICE
They are instantly transformed into the
character they designed earlier. Their
class dice fuses with their body.
Ask the player if they want to describe
what they look like. Some players will
leap at this, and others will much prefer
you to give them a fancy description. If a
player’s description is a little lowkey,
build upon it. These are not normal
people. For example, a player described
herself as someone with regality and
charm and charisma. I added “she looks
like Meryl Streep’s Meryl Streep.”
Describe how physically amazing they
feel. Anyone with a Strength or Dexterity
of 3 basically feels like an Olympic
athlete does. A stat of 4 feels like living
CGI.
If the combat with the Fallen has
started, it's likely you'll want to have the
descriptions be shorter to keep things
pacy, but lets the players have fun.
They can now use the abilities as set
out on their character sheet.
WAYS PLAYERS MAY BE SHITS AT THIS
POINT
By which I mean “express their agency
as players.” Geesh, you people.
Basically, there's two main ways a
player may choose to be awkward here.
First is by trying to grab another
person's dice. The second is by simply
refusing to pick up the dice at all.
The first is easy: they simply can't pick
up any dice other than their own. Their
hands just change direction, as if
they're a magnet entering a field with an
opposite charge.
Just not picking up the dice is trickier
for them – but also, in a real way, not a
problem at all. The personas are in a
dangerous situation. They may not
believe that you will hurt them, or they
may try and run off, or fight the Fallen
with their bare hands or many other
solutions that have crawled from the
players' brains. If players are simply
being a bit slow, it may be worth
reminding them about the weird magical
glowing dice that are here – you know,
the ones that changed the GM's persona
into a fucking wizard. If they’re also the
brave and noble players who want to
play a character who panics, runs from
magic and generally is a mess? More
power to ’em.
However, if they haven’t grabbed their
dice, they’ve missed their chance to get
the dice for free, so now all
untransformed players have to survive
a combat round in the melee... with the
abilities of a real-world human being.
Personas, before they are transformed,
have 2 for all their six statistics and a
defence of 1. If a player is a professional
athlete or a world-class professor, you
may give them a 3 in a stat... but this is
unlikely. All humans are kind of average
compared to fantasy heroes. Aragorn
could beat up everyone's dad.
Combat starts and they are stuck in
their natural form until they manage to
get hold of their dice. While the Fallen
will not prioritise the untransformed
personas to begin with, they also won't
spare them. If the transformed
characters manage to protect the
untransformed and look like they're
defeating the Fallen, you can decide
how to progress. If you want to force the
issue, you can always have more Fallen
arrive. However, if the player really
doesn’t want to transform, see how it
goes. They will have a hard time, but it’s
an interesting role-playing situation. If
it’s possible to return to the room later,
the player may always transform then.
Alternatively, you can have their dice
appear at some dramatically meaningful
point during the second session to give
them a second chance to grasp their
powers.
Really though? Untransformed, they'll
be lucky if the first hit does not kill them.
If they are not lucky, kill them. Tell the
player their persona is dead, and move
onto the next player's action. The player
will likely be surprised, so offer a “wait
to see what happens” nod.
Expect a scramble to pick up the
glowing dice if they haven't already.
At the end of the combat, something
awful happens to the dead persona.
They re-animate as a new Fallen, aware
that their sentience is starting to leak
away (See the section called “Running
the Fallen” later for details). To become
Fallen before a persona transforms is a
particularly bad state for them to be in.
They can pick up their dice when they
return as Fallen, but it does absolutely
nothing to them bar attaching to their
body.
If the characters somehow all manage
to get killed, the Fallen eat their bodies a
little then wander off. After a short
period of time, everyone becomes
Player Fallen.
Er... an interesting adventure awaits.
ROOM PROBLEMS
It's possible your room may not be
suitable, in which case, you can cheat.
Expand the room in scale, so it's a much
larger space. Alternatively, make the
players tiny, so they're the size of
figures on the table before them. Or
anything between. Board up the
windows and doors so they can't see
what's outside, giving you room to make
the rest of the game anything you want.
The players should not be able to
escape this area until the end of the
session.
FIRST ENCOUNTER IN THE ROOM THE
PLAYERS ARE IN
The above suggests that it's all
modelled after the room the personas
were in before entering Die, which is the
literary thing to do. I would suggest
going another way, at least on your first
play.
Instead, make the room they arrive in
appear in to be a dark mirror of the room
the players are sitting in. As in, the
actual real-life room you are presently
sitting in.
This approach is accessible to the
players. If the players are in the space it
makes it easy to visualise, and easy to
understand what’s happening (e.g.
“Monsters burst in through there...” GM
points at the door to the room.). The
fundamental meta nature of the game
also becomes clear, in terms of messing
around with reality, and there's
something creepy about personas
playing characters who are now
trapped in a dark mirror of the players'
reality. Plus, while being meta, it's also a
way to simplify. As you're already
roleplaying a person playing a
roleplaying game, having something
simple to hold onto is not a bad idea in
any way whatsoever.
END OF THE FIRST SESSION
The encounter lasts until the Fallen are
defeated. If you're bored of the fight, or
you are running out of time, the Fallen
can all turn as if hearing something
uncanny and run. Or crumble to dust.
This is an appetizer, and an excuse for
the players to experiment with their Uther” is a stronger ending than a
abilities in a relatively safe environment. generalised “It’s your fantasy realm.”

When it’s over, allow the players to try If you know roughly the sort of area they
and exit to the outer world. Have them will be appearing in, you can be more
pull back the curtain or open the door specific. In practice, the name is
and tell them what they see. enough.

It’s the fantasy realm from the game Cut to black, theme tune and post-game
their personas played when they were decompression chat. Come back next
young, all those years ago. time!

This is why you asked the players its

name. “Out there… it’s the Land of
You will pick up the second session from
where you left off last time. The players
are in the same space they were, likely
surrounded by the corpses of the Fallen,
having just opened a door to see their
teenage fantasy world out there.
You will ask them what they want to do,
and lead them through further
encounters which lead to the
conclusion.
HOW DO WE GENERATE FURTHER
ENCOUNTERS?
We make them up.
MAKING UP FURTHER ENCOUNTERS
I'll put this up front: what follows tries
hard, but is not a pure cooking recipe. It
is more a cupboard of ingredients with
some guidelines of how to throw them
together. This is designed as a bunch of
ways to make it easier to make stuff up.
But, really, the answer is "make stuff
up". Do not let any of the methodology
below distract you from the purpose of
it. Like cooking, the point is to make
awesome food.
Equally, if you’re an experienced games-
master, do not let this distract you from
what I’m saying. I’m saying “prepare the
adventure”. You’ve done this already, in
other games. These are tactics which
are useful when preparing a DIE
adventure, but are in addition to
everything you already know. Do it your
way. This is doubly true if you use any of
the weird stuff from the Arcana.
(I’m really building up the Arcana as a
source of horror. It was originally “the
appendix” but I renamed it to “The
Arcana”. Beware the Lovecraftian
Arcana. WoooOOoooOOooo.)
You have a gap between sessions. You
can sit down and work out the
encounters you would like the players to
experience. Some GMs may want to
make up everything in advance. Others
will have rough ideas which they will
develop in play. Others will not even
read this section and wing it. These are
all valid methods. Love to everyone.
Suffice to say, we're in the difficult
middle-section of the game. The opening
of the scenario is a set point – “people
sit down and play a game and get
dragged into a fantasy world”. The
ending is a set point – “people decide
whether to go home or not”. The middle
is where you game most becomes
uniquely yours. It’s the hard bit – but it’s
also the exciting bit. This is much easier
than it looks. That DIE actually has this
conclusion built into it makes everything
easier – you will reach a climax. It’s just
a question of filling some time
interestingly between the two.
Honestly, you’re amazing. You’re going
to nail this.
At the end of this section, you’ll find a
hypothetical example to show how this
could work in practice. There are other
actual play examples in the Arcana for
you to browse and see how your fellow
players have done it. See – the Arcana,
not just home of Lovecraftian horror.
What follows is a framework to try and
make encounters. It's a framework to
guide your creativity, and to reduce the
feeling of working from a blank page.
CREATING YOUR FRAMEWORK
Reread your notes on the first session.
What are the flaws of each persona?
What are the personas interested in?
What has the Master character sold
people out for?
Just chew it over.
Then you’re going to work down this list.
And sometimes up, but this is a logical
way to progress.
1) THE LOCALE – where the adventure
will be set.
2) THE PERSONAS’ TEMPTATIONS – how
the adventure will test the personas
3) THE ACTUAL ENCOUNTERS
1) THE LOCALE
Why is this important?
The players have to go somewhere to
have an adventure. Knowing where it is
makes all the other steps easier. If you
have a space where the game take
places it suggests the sort of things the
players will end up doing, so lets you
think of what may happen. Equally, it
sets the boundaries of the world and so
defines the amount of encounters you
will have to make. This is what happens
in “The Personas’ Temptations” and
“The Actual Encounters” sections. This
is you defining a place to inspire it.
I’ve decided to Dismiss Your Wisdom
and Not Send Them to The Fantasy
RPG they Played in As Kids
Go to the Arcana, you fool of a Took.
Making Their Teenage Fantasy World
This is why at least most of the
personas are all connected by that
teenage experience – it allows you to
create a setting which has meaning for
them. Equally, as fantasy RPGs tend to
work on a fairly robust set of tropes and
conventions, it means you have a
backbone of a setting which you can fill
in the gaps of as you play.
The players have opened the door, and
step into the world. The room is sitting
there, in the middle of the landscape
(The Dorothy’s House gambit) or that
the door is a magical portal into the
world (the Wardrobe to Narnia gambit).
Either way, you can’t go back.
So – a fantasy world. Think about a
generalised fantasy world, and the sorts
of situations you can drop them into.
Archetypes are good. There is no need
to even try to be clever. The cleverness
is what we do with the structure.
As this is designed for a short number of
sessions, here’s a selection of useful
basic situations to drop people into…
* The world is about to be conquered by
the Not Sauron, unless they can creep
into Not Mount Doom and destroy Not
The One Ring.
* The greatest city of the empire is
under siege by its greatest enemy.
* The Alliance of Lords are about to
elect an evil person to the highest
throne.
* The land will be destroyed if the Not
Holy Grail is not found.
* You’re in a dungeon. How can you get
out?
At this point, be thinking about the sorts
of antagonists and characters they will
meet. For example, the evil dark lord, the
henchpeople, lords, dragons and
whatever.
Think broadly. You don’t need to nail
down specifics yet. If you make a map,
leave spaces to fill in. I regularly just
draw a rough shape, and then place
things as I go along, either in
preparation or during play. For example,
I have drawn a rough circle and said,
“This is the city under siege”, had a list
of ideas for encounters but only placed
them on the map during actually running
the game. Making a map as you go along
can be a lot of fun.
You don’t need to actually generate a
whole working world – in fact, that’s
likely to get in the way of what we’re
doing in the second session, when
you’re going to be asking questions to
the players about what their teenage
fantasy world was like and using those
details in the game. A blank map you fill
with the players’ answers during play is
a very strong tactic.
Of course, you’ve already asked the
players a bunch of questions in the first
session, right? So…
2) THE PERSONA’S TEMPTATIONS (aka
FUCKING WITH THEM)
At this point you will have a locale to
explore – you now need to make it work
with the thematic elements you’ve
drawn from your personas.
It's likely you'll be thinking of this
already, but I want to state it explicitly,
one last time.
The dilemma at the end of the game is
whether the players go home or not. As
such, at least for some characters, you
want to create possible temptations for
them to stay.
1) Look at what they lack, based on
that emotional need.
2) Offer it to them.
It doesn't have to be much, of course. In
The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe,
Edward fucked over the rest of his
friends for Turkish Delight. It's also
worth noting that he changed sides
again. This axis is one of the more
rewarding ones the game can provoke –
someone turning on their friends and
then realising it's just not worth it is a
real emotional arc.
The “offering it to them” in an encounter
can be either immediate or postponed
until later in the adventure. The more
likely it is to derail the encounter, the
better it is to postpone the choice until
the end. If someone’s long-lost love
appears halfway through the adventure
and begs a character to stay with them,
there are two choices – either they stay,
or they leave. If they stay, the game
breaks. If the choice appears at the end,
it means that it's part of the climax. The
“your love is captured by the baddy” is
always an option, and Nintendo has
managed to stretch decades of Mario
games out of that setup.
But remember DIE's theme. Emotionally
speaking, the princess is always in
another castle.
Temptations can be crass or subtle.
They can be designed to be awful
heartbreakers or easy to reject. Ideally,
conceive them with no idea how the
player will respond. They can happen
either at an individual moment in the
encounter, or be a running theme
throughout it.
If a character is estranged from their
parent, it's likely that encounter will
involve something which is related to
their parental issues. If a character is
really upset that they could never win at
Donkey Kong, it's likely that the
encounter is related to that – either
literally (as in, a monkey at the top of
the hill throwing stuff at you) or less
literally (the encounter is giving the
player a chance to have their ability
hailed above all others, as "Being best
at Donkey Kong" isn't really about
“Being best at Donkey Kong”, is it?)
It is equally likely that these character
points will play out on the largest level.
As in, they’ll form the inspiration for the
adventure. At the least, the Master’s
desires will do that. If the Master’s urges
are somewhat darker, it’s likely they’ll
take the place of a villain in the world.
For example, if the Master wants to rule
a world as absolute Master, the Master
will likely be in the place of your story’s
arch-villain. Sometimes players’ own
desires can suggest alternatives too.
If a character has no strong desires, do
include something which comes from
the information they gave you. For
example, if all you got from a player was
that they quite like the books of Agatha
Christie, you should definitely consider
having Poirot turn up as a character
they meet. Possibly a warped version of
Poirot, of course. Or set the whole thing
as a weird murder mystery and… you
see the point. Building upon what people
have given you is very much what the
game is. Do not doubt how effective this
can be. When I had David Bowie turn up
towards the conclusion of a game, the
players almost exploded.
In short: use the obsessions of all
personas, including your own, to both
inspire and personalise the encounters.
Remember: the Major Needs you’ve
highlighted are what the players will be
disappointed about if they don’t come
into the game. They’ve thrown you the
ball. Don’t drop it.
Either using the personas’ major
obsessions as a backbone for their
adventures or as the key inspiration for
an encounter is a good way to do this. If
you can throw in some minor
obsessions as well, all the better. Make
sure that you draw equally from each
persona, so each player feels equally
listened to.
For example, you’ve decided that this
DIE will be set in a fairly typical fantasy
realm. The Master is actually just a
simple villain, who is selling out his
friends so he can live his fantasy of
being basically Sauron. Looking at the
personas, Reginald the GM works out
elements to use. Theresa is a divorcee
who is hugely bitter towards her ex for
making her miss her mum’s death. Adam
feels he has never been appreciated for
his endless work as a teacher. Maria’s
only hobby is being an ornithologist.
The GM thinks Theresa’s ex may inspire
a useful lieutenant for the Master, and
gives Theresa a chance to confront and
get closure with him, one way or
another – he could be a recurring villain,
or a one-off. A chance to speak to
something akin to her dead mum is also
a possibility – this could be something
the Master offers her, or a place she
finds, or anything else. There’s definitely
lots of emotional meat there.
Adam wants to be hailed for the work?
Adam is a folk hero ala Robin Hood in
this world – all the people they meet are
huge fans of Adam, and hope he’ll save
them. This could lead to an encounter
where he’s hailed by everyone as this
grand hero, especially AFTER the Master
is defeated… but it’s also a theme that
works across the whole scenario.
Maria doesn’t seem to be the sort of
obsessed ornithologist who would sell
out her friends for a look at a fancy
bird… but you never know. Having birds
which only speak to Maria could be an
interesting motif though, so Reginald
makes some notes to make birds be
important throughout.
These elements immediately will
suggest things in the locale. You will
likely muse it over, before stepping on to
three.
3) THE ACTUAL ENCOUNTERS
You now have a place for all this action
to happen and a vague idea of the sort
of things you want. Now it’s a case of
just arranging the pieces into
ENCOUNTERS. The ENCOUNTERS
populate the locale with interesting
people to meet, punch and have
existential crises with.
You do not need to initially plan
everything. What you’re trying to do is
create a spine of a structure, which
allows you to know how the adventure
could be solved, at least in one way. The
players will do their own thing, but
you’ve thought about the space and
what could be there.
First, look at the locale you’ve set the
game in. Work out the objective – as in,
where the players will be trying to get to
in order to confront the Master. Work
out where you will start the players.
Look between the two. What’s to stop
the players from just marching from one
to the other? Each place where the
players could be stopped is a place
where you need an encounter. It will
also likely suggest something of the
nature of the encounter.
For example, we’ve decided to set this
game around a thinly-veiled version of
Mordor in Middle-earth. The players
have to get to Barad-dur to confront the
Master. They start outside. Looking at
the map, there’s the big old gate that
stops you getting in. That would be one
encounter. There’s the back route
through Cirith Ungol, past Shelob the
spider. That could be another encounter.
There’s Mount Doom – like, maybe you
can’t break into Barad-dur until the ring
has been destroyed? And then there’s
the confrontation with the Master at
Barad-dur itself.
This mean the basic spine would be…
1) THE GATES. Either get in or get
shown another way.
2) CIRITH UNGOL – getting past Shelob
or the maze or something similar.
3) MOUNT DOOM – destroying the ring.
4) CONFRONTATION AT BARAD-DUR.
Clearly the “travel between these
places” could be another encounter.
That you know personal details about
the personas may give you some idea of
how these encounters may be.
For example, following from Reginald’s
party, immediately a lot of Tolkien links
are suggested. The orcs, rather than
being villains, could be hailing Adam as
their saviour. If we need a place for
Theresa’s evil ex, Shelob would make a
wonderful thing to play with. Equally the
fires of Mount Doom could be a good
place to try and talk to the dead mother
(or perhaps that’s offered during the
final confrontation in Barad-dur). Finally,
as Tolkien loves his eagles, the party’s
advisors throughout could be Maria’s
birds.
You can see that juxtaposing the map
and the personal details leads to a core
idea of fun encounters.
How many encounters do you need to
prepare?
Generally speaking, in a 2-3 hour
session you’ll need 3-4. This includes
the climactic faceoff against the Master.
A large combat encounter will normally
count as more than one smaller one.
If you’re planning on running the
scenario indefinitely, clearly, make as
many as you like. Or as few. You can
always add more later, often in
response to players’ decisions.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again –
every single piece of RPG scenario
design works here. This is 100% “design
or improvise an adventure” stuff. Any
GM advice column in the world is useful
for this.
THE FINAL ENCOUNTER
To stress, working out an interesting
possible place for the final
confrontation with the Master is worth
doing. It’s the climax of the adventure,
and should feel like it.
KEY THINGS THE PLAYERS SHOULD
DISCOVER ALONG THE WAY
There’re facts which the adventure
should impart to the players, as
necessary. You’ll want to let the players
know these – and the first one, as soon
as possible.
1) If everyone agrees to go home,
including the Master, they go home.
That’s it.
2) As far as everyone in the world
knows, this is the real world.
3) The world is unstable. If they don’t
all either leave or stay, eventually
the world will end.
4) The world will continue once they’re
gone (or all decide to stay).
Point 2 is the trickiest one, of course –
the only character who definitely knows
all of this is the Master character.
Information coming directly from him is
one way to do it. Alternatively, more
liminal, strange magical creatures are
useful – I’ve a habit of using high
magical creatures who are aware of the
dual realities of Die and the “real world”.
A dragon rolls its eternal eyes at you
and telling you this stuff has a way of
playing to tropes. It also works with Kate
Bush. Or a Kate Bush dragon.
SPECIFICS DETAIL OF THE ENCOUNTER
You now only need 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. This is your preparation,
remember – it’s not definitely going to
happen. Things not going to plan is the
plan.
For any given encounter, it’s possible
you will already have an idea for an
encounter based on the personas’
temptations or the locale, or both. You
may consider tweaking them in some
way, by combining them with part of a
players’ background. 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.
Be aware, you want to include enough
material that it resonates with all the
players. If the whole game is just about
one persona, it’s unlikely to be
satisfying for most players. The
exception may be a one-off or a game
with drama-averse players, where the
game ends up being about the
antagonist’s obsessions and the
personas’ attempts to survive them.
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…
FRIENDS, ENEMIES, MONSTERS, THE
GENERAL CREATURE OF DIE
This edition of DIE doesn't exactly go
into masses of rules and lists of
monsters or creatures. We’ll probably do
more down the line, and there’s some
examples at the end of the section, but
this is the sort of thinking I go about
when preparing a game and the
characters.
1) Choose what they are!
Here’s some ways to generate
someone…
a) Choosing something logically from
the locale. If you’ve got ideas, use
them.
b) If a player's Minor Detail is a movie or
piece of fiction, grabbing characters
from that is amazing. It's your RPG
played in the privacy of the house.
You don't need to pay Games
Workshop money if you want to fight
Space Marines. Or make out with
Space Marines.
c) For Arcana users, consider
something random from The Box of
Crap.
d) Go with something you've just
thought of which seems appropriate.
Like a liche. Liches are always good.
Everyone loves liches.
If you don’t know what a liche is…
a) Welcome to this hell of role-playing.
I’m impressed you’ve got this far into
the manual without running away
screaming.
b) A liche is basically “What if Gandalf
from Lord of the Rings was also an
undead monster.” If you’re
wondering who Gandalf is, he’s a bit
like Dumbledore from Harry Potter. If
you’re wondering who Dumbledore
is, he’s a bit like Alan Moore.
If you wonder why liche has an “e” at
the end, it’s because I was exposed to
Warhammer to a toxic degree as a
teenager.
2) Consider weirding it up
You may not want to run it straight.
Colour it with an element either from the
personas’ histories or an element of the
environment they find themselves in. If
a persona is a big Harry Potter fan,
perhaps the liche is Undead
Dumbledore. Perhaps the liche reminds
them of their dad. Perhaps the liche is
their dad. Warning: do NOT make your
liche Alan Moore. He will use his powers
on you.
At the least, consider making them
Fallen – especially if you want to be able
to fight them with no moral questions. Or
rather, relatively few moral questions.
Fallen are a visual motif in DIE, so will be
familiar to anyone who’s read the comic.
Equally, they are important to the latter
game. If a player meets Fallen regularly
before anyone dies, it’ll mean more.
3) If you need stats, choose stats. If
you don’t need stats, don’t bother
choosing stats
DIE is deliberately simple in its use of
profiles. Standard monster profiles and
example creatures are included at the
end of The Rules. What follows explains
the basic process of adding some rules
to your ideas.
It's also worth stressing that while this
is in the preparation system, you don't
need to generate this profile until the
players have to actually use the rules to
interact with the monsters. Are the
players going to attack that dragon with
the face of their old headmaster?
Probably not. If that’s so, you don't need
to generate it. If a battle actually
happens, it's a case of choosing the
Epic Monster profile and letting it do
anything that would be sensible for a
dragon with the face of their old
headmaster to do, like set homework, or
incinerate them.
DIE is a generous system. We all have
busy lives. We don’t need to know the
random orc’s general knowledge skill.
Most orcs don’t know anything about
generals.
4) Personalities
If it's just a monster, or brainless, this
can be skipped. Or maybe not. Maybe
this is a Gelatinous Cube that sings the
songs of Huey Lewis And The News as
it's devouring you. I'm not even joking.
It's likely, especially if you're using a
detail from a persona’s history to create
it, that you know what their personality
is like. If the persona hasn’t actually
defined any details other than a vague
“I miss my dead parent” when the dead
parent appears as a liche, just make a
note to ask the player for more details in
play. We talk about asking players
question to tweak the world in The
Second Session in a few pages. In
short: ask what the parent was like in
terms of personality, and then then play
the liche as your interpretation of what
they say.
Er... you don't need to have them be a
liche. I'm kind of committed to the liche
as the standard example now.
It’s likely we will include personality
quirk generators in later editions, but for
this one, it seems extraneous. Almost
every RPG system has one, and if you
have one in your Box of Crap you can
turn to them. If not, there are many
personality generators online, which
can easily be googled. Here’s one I just
have:
https://springhole.net/writing_roleplayin
g_randomators/character-quirk.htm.
Generally speaking, don’t be afraid to
play characters to the fucking hilt. If you
want a really weird character, select
multiple options, but be aware you're
always risking things turning into Monty
Python if you go too zany.
Of course, for true horror players,
choose entirely emotionless, to the max.
Entirely non-responsive. Silent staring.
Monotone voices. This is also horrific.
Especially if you do it for more than one
creature the player meets, as it speaks
to the nature of the horror world in
which they find themselves.
Oh, there is one particular kind of
character which is likely to be of use
with this core setting – an encounter
with the personas’ previous characters
(i.e. the characters the personas played
in their original teenage RPG). While
having the world think the players are
actually their old heroes is a logical
route, you can get more drama from
showing where their old characters
ended up. Heroic master thieves
begging in an alleyway, bards running a
simple pub and so on. It’s a useful way
to dovetail with the personas’ real lives
– as in, showing them the road they’re
on. If you meet your teenage hero stuck
in a loveless marriage, it can give you
perspective.
SECOND SESSION GENERATION
WORKED EXAMPLES
Here’s a hypothetical walkthrough of
preparing for an actual scenario, to
show all of the above in practice.
If you want to see how some groups
actually did it in the playtests, go look in
the Arcana.
THE HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE
I’m going to use the same locale, and
show two completely different ways you
could take the material generated by
the personas. Here’s a set of personas
in a stripped-down form. It’s likely that
yours will have more complicated links.
To stress, the GM’s character – Rupert –
likely has several bits of this information
hidden from the other players.
The players were a D&D group – with the
exception of Rupert, who is Valentine’s
cooler older brother. Or at least he was
then. They’re now all in their late 30s.
Bob, a Rage Knight
Bitter divorcee, who has spent ten years
in an increasingly loveless marriage
only to discover his wife has been
cheating on him, and has left him. Has
always had a lingering crush on
Valentine. Used to play a Fighter.
Core Drive: resentment at having
wasted 20 years of his life.
Secondary Elements: amateur historian.
Always wanted to move to the big city.
Football supporter (Arsenal). Catholic.
Trudy, a Godbinder
Was the GM of their group as teenagers.
Small-town wife. Two kids, mid-teens.
Dropped out of her literature degree
while pregnant. Now kids are about to
leave home, and aware that she’s not
sure what to do with her life. Long-
standing crush on Rupert, but more how
Rupert was then than now. She’s been
sad and disappointed in him forever.
Used to play a Cleric.
Core Drive: stymied creative urge.
Secondary Elements: volunteers at the
library. Avid reader of literally any trash
fantasy novel. Secretly smokes.
Idealises Sylvia Plath.
Valentine, a Neo
She’s a nervous, closeted small-town IT
specialist consultant. She’s gay, still
afraid of coming out, afraid of her
religious mother, afraid of everything.
Younger sister of Rupert. Used to play a
Rogue.
Core Drive: to stop being scared.
Secondary Elements: huge gamer. Long-
term Blizzard fan, especially
Hearthstone.
Rupert, a Master
He was the nerdy king of the school. He
was even generous then – he was
friendly with all his sister’s geek friends,
even if he teased the game. He was a
literary nerd not a gaming nerd, loving
Tolkien. His life didn’t really go
anywhere. He works at a bar and has
never left the town, with a string of
relationships with women he decides
“weren’t good enough for him”.
Core Drive: his life peaked at high school
– he wants a chance to be the king he
should always have been. His
expectations are simply too high.
Secondary Elements: protective of
sister, and all too aware she’s gay.
Football supporter (Tottenham).
These are British people, btw. To
translate to American, replace “Arsenal”
and “Tottenham” with “Yankees” and
“Red Sox”.
THE LOCALE
It’s their teenage D&D game. It’s a land
with a high fantasy feel, which is all I
need as an aesthetic – high fantasy, all
the time. I’m also aware that the fact
they’re traveling to a teenage fantasy
world gives an excuse for the stuff
around the edges being not exactly
perfectly thought out. It’s a teenage
D&D world!
The simple setting: the land is about to
be crushed by the forces of Evil, ruled by
some kind of Dark Lord.
The last free folk have gathered in the
last stronghold. They can transport a
group of heroes deep within the Dark
Lord’s lair, in a last attempt to stop him.
When they step out of the room at the
start of the second session, they’ll find
themselves in the stronghold of the
remaining good folk of the land.
Here’s two separate ways someone
may use the above information to
develop two adventures. They’re written
to show ways your thought processes
may go, including going back and
editing.
The first is a pure good and evil
structure, the other considerably more
complicated.
EXAMPLE ONE: RUPERT AS A TOTAL
SHIT/BASIC VERSION
This is the simple way to do it.
Rupert’s life peaked as a teenager, and
he thinks he deserves better from life
than he ever got. His core drive is simple
– he wants to rule a fantasy world of his
own. To come here, he had to bring
some people – the other personas. He
hopes his sister will join him but, really,
they’re all just sacrifices for his power.
He is in the Evil Lair, and he is the Dark
Lord of the world. He has acquired the
Magic Item of Evildom, which means he
drives all the forces of evil, evilly. The
players get there, and we have the
classic epic confrontation at the top of
his lair. In other words, the encounters
are primarily aggressive obstacles
trying to slow them down. This is mainly
playing the Dark Lord situation straight.
They have to travel through the
dungeon beneath the evil castle. Let’s
call it the Undercity. The players arrive
in the last stronghold of the forces of
good, get briefed, and then transported
to the Undercity. I could draw a map to
link things together, or have my list of
places they are likely to discover and as
the players defeat them they get closer.
I realise I want it to be more than just
“Go to the bad guy and kill them”. As
we’re riffing on a basic fantasy story,
having the one weapon that means the
Dark Lord Can Be Defeated in the castle
seems a good thing.
So – this basically creates a list of core
encounters for the second session…
1) The briefing in the last stronghold.
2) The arrival in the Undercity.
3) Some manner of pursuit when
they’re down there???
4) Finding the magical artefact.
5) Using it to confront the Master.
The briefing? As this is a pop fantasy
take, Trudy’s love of trashy fantasy
seems a useful thing to mine for content
– as is Valentine’s love of Blizzard
games. I’d like to include some elements
from Trudy’s favourite fantasy books,
but I haven’t actually asked her what
her favourites are yet. I don’t need to. I’ll
just ask her in play, and then just drop
the wisest person from that book into
the role of advisor… and can also
provide the actual nature of the artefact
to defeat the Dark Lord. Alternatively,
the details can be filled in by asking
players questions about their RPG world
during the session – “What was the
legendary artefact in your game?” is
always an easy one. Whatever it is, it
either allows Rupert to be killed or gives
access to Rupert’s secret lair.
So – why is the artefact in the dungeon?
Easy option – the personas’ original
teenage RPG characters went in there
with it. The good guys cowering in the
last stronghold haven’t heard any
contact. This sets for an agreeable
tragic encounter when the players
catch up with them. That actually
changes the necessary encounters…
1) The briefing in the last stronghold.
2) The arrival in the Undercity.
3) Finding the party who went first.
4) Finding the artefact
5) Using it to confront the Master,
Rupert.
Now – how about Rupert having some
lieutenants? That gives us some
antagonists who players can also
interact with, who aren’t Rupert.
There’s someone who’s killed the
previous party, and is leading the
resistance against the players – a
lieutenant figure. Scanning the
background – Valentine and Bob both
have domineering figures they’re
resentful of. The ex-wife and the
religious mother could easily be twisted
into encounters.
That Bob’s ex-wife “took” something
from him means that she’s an influence
on the lieutenant who’s hunted down
the party and has taken the magical
artefact she needs. Taking a Nazgul
archetype as a monster and giving her
followers gives a fairly creepy visual.
There’s also the idea that maybe they
don’t need to fight her – There’s room
for Bob making peace with his past here.
Valentine’s mum as a religious mother,
as a necromantic cult leader, leading an
awful dark mass? That’ll be a good thing
to arrive in, as a huge visual, and gives
the players a choice to intervene or not
in whatever is going on. As it’s
Valentines’ mum, this seems to be her
encounter. Her mum’s victims could be
some beautiful elves, taken prisoner,
with a suggestion that it’s because of
they’re not straight. Can Valentine stand
up to her mum? Make peace with her?
Defeat her? Who knows? As Powered By
Apocalypse World games like to say in
their manuals, we play to find out.
Next – they find their way to as far as
the previous party got. All dead – which
we’ll ask the players some questions
about in play to work out why it’s
particularly sad. I check if I’ve given all
the characters an encounter which
revolves around their obsessions. Well,
Valentine and Bob already have big
scenes, but Trudy hasn’t. She needs
one. If the party is already dead, how do
they work out where the artefact has
gone? Well, Trudy’s a Godbinder – she
could bring them back to commune with,
via a deal with one of the gods. Which is
fun. But… it’s a bit mechanics-based?
How to make it personal? The Sylvia
Plath mention sticks out – having a bard
based on Sylvia Plath as part of the
original party? Whatever challenge they
do to get the clue, they get her dying
words, which is a chance for Trudy to
talk hero to hero and get inspiration
from it (perhaps linking to that stymied
creative urge?). Some manner of
combat situation, fighting ghosts for a
chance to speak with her literary hero
certainly works.
From that, one way or another, we get to
the confrontation with Bob’s Nazgul ex-
wife (Yes, now’s there a sentence.). One
way or another, we get emotional
closure and the artefact.
And then onto a final confrontation, at
the most dramatic part of the lair. That,
according to the scenario, the world will
be falling apart means it’s going to be a
deeply dramatic visual background to
whatever happens. Any ways to spice it
up with the background?
Hmm. Bob had a lingering crush on
Valentine? With the rules for the Fallen,
the opportunity to kill her and then have
her as Bob’s eternal bride is certainly
something evil Rupert could suggest if
Valentine rejects his demand to stay.
It’s certainly a loaded decision, but the
fact this is meant to be a more fun and
games adventure means this feels far
too ugly (especially with Valentine’s
sexuality). I keep it as an idea, but find it
unlikely I’ll go there unless the group is
leaning that dark.
Wait. This adventure is designed to be
high adventure – we’re overthinking it.
Let’s work out a bunch of lieutenants in
this final encounter. Rupert liked
Tolkien? Having the key LOTR cast as his
petrified servants, and winning the fight
sets them free would be a big cool geek
thrill moment – and, if they’re suitably
grateful, perhaps giving Bob some
closure on his resentment. Obviously,
Rupert is married to Galadriel and
Arwen, to highlight the shallowness of
his “No woman is good enough for me”
bullshit.
A quick final scan through for minor
details – I’ll use one of the online
Hearthstone card banks to randomly
generate cards to influence encounters,
include a few historians in the opening
council of the wise and have the
banners of Arsenal on the good guys
and the Tottenham flag on the bad guys.
That sounds fun, and signals that it’s a
playful game. Work out a few stats for
the key monsters – Hero Wizard for the
mum and Monster for the ex, perhaps –
and then we’re good to go.
EXAMPLE TWO: RUPERT AS MORE
SYMPATHETIC/COMPLICATED VERSION
So, Rupert is an over-achiever who
thinks he deserves better than he got?
Let’s not throw out the affection for his
sister too easily. He actually believes
this fantasy world is better for everyone
– their lives are all shit. He’s hoping that
being here will make them want to stay.
The backbone of “Get to the Evil Lair”
seems solid – do we have to throw it
out? A simple option – in fact, the
Council of the Stronghold think Rupert’s
character is the new lieutenant of the
Dark Lord. The players think they’re
going to have to confront them both.
However, when they get to the end, the
players discover that Rupert has
already killed the Dark Lord. The world
will be at peace now… and haven’t your
experiences along the way taught you
you’ll be happier here too?
This means that the Encounters will be
as much about giving players a chance
to realise what they could be here. As
such, we’ll be looking for at least one
encounter (or one theme running
throughout the game) for each
character to be tempted by.
We keep the same backbone – a magical
artefact, carried to the base. If Rupert’s
in charge, and he’s the LOTR master, we
take notes straight from Tolkien. The
artefact is the one ring. The place it’s
got to get to is a big volcano base like
Mount Doom. Except, in our story, the
Dark Lord has his room in Mount Doom,
so you don’t get to sneak around. We’ll
fill in other details from asking players
questions about their old fantasy world.
Er… will we stick with that? Who knows,
but it’s enough to start with. We can bin
it if the details change.
Who is the Dark Lord? It could be
generic, but with this game world, let’s
make it personal. The character who
has most connection to the personas?
Valentines’ mum – who is also Rupert’s
mum, remember. Have the Dark Lord
inspired by her, and Rupert seemingly
her servant… until the reveal.
If she’s the Dark Lord, and her daughter
is afraid of her judgement, her rule must
be deeply conservative, so implying her
death would lead to the overthrow of all
these values. As such, we’ll have to
filter the story with these ideas of
persecution. Simultaneously, the people
of the last redoubt could be a bunch of
lovely sweethearts. Having the players’
old RPG characters be there seems
logical – rather than tragedy, let’s make
them be positive meetings, to give the
players something to fight for.
That’s Valentine’s thread. It’s her road
to confront a fantasy analogue of her
mother, with the world-view Valentine is
petrified of externalized all around her.
This means that Valentine needs a
chance to confront the mother analogue
– so Rupert taking her down has to be
after Valentine has had a chance to
either stand up to her or not. Either way,
Rupert turns on the mother (likely using
the Master’s special abilities) but it sets
the game up for a very different
conclusion.
Okay – Valentine is done. She doesn’t
have a single specific encounter – the
Dark Mother’s influence should tinge
every encounter.
How about Bob and Trudy? They’re two
very different personas. Bob has a big
core drive – his resentment over his
wasted life. Trudy is more diffuse, with
smaller urges. Even her “stymied
creative urge” doesn’t seem to align
with her other elements. Hell, for some
reason we haven’t even asked anything
about the Father and how he fits into all
of this?
Hmm.
Trudy has always had a crush on
Rupert… but younger, ambitious Rupert.
Meanwhile Rupert is trying to get a girl
who is “good enough for him”. These
seem to somewhat dovetail. Rupert is
certainly ambitious now. And Trudy? By
actually fighting her way through all
these dungeons, she’ll have proved
she’s an amazing hero. This is their best
selves! Or at least, that’s how he could
see it. That Trudy has kids means it’s
unlikely she could be seduced to stay in
the world and abandon her real life… but
you never know.
That means that the encounters along
the way should give her a chance to
achieve purpose and show off. But what
to do? Well, a setting does present itself
– a library is a useful thing. If we’re
dropping into a dungeon to explore, a
huge labyrinth with long walls of books
is a great setting for an encounter. Hell,
maybe more.
If we’ve got a Library and we’ve got a
Dark Lord who’s hyper-conservative,
this segues into… well, book burnings,
am I right? That’s the place they’re
going – the Holy Library that the Dark
Lord is trying to destroy. We can use
literary figures who are Trudy’s
inspirations (which include Sylvia Plath,
and others can be worked out by asking
questions) as the holy guardians of this
place?
That sounds fun. In fact, more fun than
fucking Mount Doom analogue with a
one-ring analogue. In which case, let’s
throw away Mount Doom and use “The
Dark Queen’s attack against this bastion
of knowledge she doesn’t like” as the
setting, and also throw away the one
ring. She’s in the central area and in a
ritual to destroy the book of light, from
which all that is good flows. That sounds
high fantasy, right? The problem is to
get there before she does it.
Let’s skip back to Bob. Now, one of his
minor details kicks in here – “amateur
historian” certainly interlinks with the
Library setting. Including the 20 years
thing – personal history is also history.
Like in the first version, his ex-wife
sounds like a useful flavour to add as an
antagonist, but let’s look some more.
She left him for someone. Trudy is
worried that now her kids are leaving
home, she lacks a purpose. Her husband
leaving too seems like something that
would horrify everyone – but especially
Trudy, right now. So have two Nazgul-
esque lieutenants, one based on Trudy’s
husband, and the other based on Bob’s
ex. Hmm. We don’t have many details
about the husband. I’ll make a note to
ask for more during play, specifically
asking about her worst fears about him.
This is all feeling exciting but I want to
step back and look at what I’ve planned.
In terms of antagonists, I’m reminded
that the creatures I’ve created may be
informed by the ex and the mother, but
they’re not actually the ex and the
Mother. They are characters in this dark
fantasy influenced by the fear. I don’t
think stabbing your ex actually is a
great way to work through emotions…
but Bob’s core drive isn’t “Fuck my ex!”
Bob’s core drive is “My life has been a
waste.”
Hmm. Well, there’s two lines of attack –
one, when meeting his old RPG fighter
character, see that that guy had an
impact on this world. Perhaps all the
good guards they meet all honour that
old fighter? Most importantly, when we
have an encounter we should see an
immediate big impact. This is partially
built in (they’re saving the world) but on
the way, their actions should help
people, and we immediately thank Bob
hard. We show him this world
appreciates him in the way the real
world doesn’t.
So – Valentine’s fear, Bob’s wasted life…
while we’ve got a story for Trudy, it
doesn’t actually really touch on what I
identified as her main issue – as in, a
stymied creative urge. Now, maybe we
don’t need this – she already has a lot of
input into the world, and her character
was more diffuse than the other two –
but we can give her a creative mission
along the way? And a reward of being a
major creative mind here?
Okay – we’ve got a lot swimming around
here. I work out a rough list of encounter
ideas.
1) Arrival in the world. Perhaps they step
out of a magic book? The good guys of
the fantasy realm explain the situation –
the Evil Queen and her lieutenant
(Rupert) are storming this library. It’s
chaos out there. The great book of light
is in peril and has been cut off from the
rest of the library by a grand wall of
darkness. If they had one of the army’s
passes, they could get through? This
story is trying to seduce – we should
signal that. I write the first note as Trudy
(who I suddenly remember I made a note
is a secret smoker) being passed a
cigarette. “Don’t worry – it’s a healing
cigarette. Smoke as many as you like.”
Instantly the idea – this world knows
you, and this world will look after you.
2) Exploring the Library. Encounter with
order of gay monks who are being
dragged away into captivity. First
showing of Dark Queen’s attitude – plus
seeing the Dark Queen’s face on the
banner, so players know who it’s based
on. If they rescue the monks, it’s clear
their order’s precious knowledge will be
hugely important to the world. Thanks,
Bob. Plus, Valentine sees her mother’s
threat.
3) A massive book burning with the
Head Librarian being burned in the
centre…. Introducing the two evil
lieutenants. They will attempt to run, to
bring warning. The Head Librarian,
dying, begs Trudy to learn enough to tell
the story of this place (her creative arc).
They’ll likely try and make Bob help too –
he’s an amateur historian, and it will
feed into his “wants to make a
difference” storyline. Nearby, watching
in bunkers, are the utterly demoralised
Warrior-Librarians (I’ll need to work out
their statistics from the “Monsters”
sections). If they can be motivated to go
out and fight, it’ll be easier for the
players to get around.
4) Lieutenants have gathered their
major forces, and are about to start
executing fictional characters – any
character who stars in a book which is
on a Christian Fundamentalist Ban List
would be good (which is a lot of books –
Harry Potter jumps to mind as a good
reference). Navigating this encounter
can be a huge battle (if the Warrior-
Librarians from the last encounter were
recruited) or a personality-based one. I
have the idea that if one of the
Lieutenants based on real-life people is
actually killed, we should actually
lampshade what’s happened. “Did you
really think this was me? Is this really
how you see me?” beat before they die,
to make the players question what
they’re actually doing. But really, “The
players need to get the key off one of
the Lieutenants” is all we need for a
backbone.
5) The final encounter – have the final
confrontation of Valentine with her Dark
Lord mum, before Rupert kills her and
makes the pitch. “People like her made
the real world terrible. She’s not here
now. Now this world will be great – let’s
stay here.” Then we’ll see if we’ve done
enough to tempt folks.
I prepare a selection of useful stats for
people they will meet, as well as
gathering together a bunch of
atmospheric things to do with books –
as I live in a house with books, I will be
generating random events based on
picking a random book off the shelf.
Clearly, we need some charming girls to
flirt with Valentine and likely Bob as well.
And, once again, I suspect Sylvia Plath
will turn up for Trudy to bond with….
Hmm, someone has to be the Head
Librarian. Asking Trudy to be successor
to Plath certainly feeds into her
obsessions…
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
• I skirt over writing more details on
characters the players meet and
their statistics. How much would you
have to pre-generate to be happy to
play the game?
• I’m using imaginary locales, without
a firm setting. How would you
integrate an actual map to ground
the experience?
• Both adventures are simple quest
narratives. As an experienced GM
knows, there’s many sorts of
narratives. How would you use
similar techniques to do – say – a
detective story? A siege? A courtly
romance?
• Rupert is a literary nerd and doesn’t
actually like RPGs. Any ideas how to
make this a bigger part of the game?
• You have the personas’ notes above.
I say that I wish I’d asked Trudy
more about her husband. What
questions would you ask?
• Neither example uses Bob’s
Catholicism. How would you use
Bob’s religion? Is that interesting to
you?
• The two above adventures are
based on Bob being relatively
blameless. Drama is usually more
complicated than that. Can you think
of ways to make the wife a more
sympathetic element?
• The personas’ old teenage RPG
characters are either killed or
passively just advisors. Would you
like them to be more active? Or
would you not use them at all?
• The second example is meant to try
and lure the players to at least
consider staying in the world. Does it
do enough? How would you make
the world more appealing?
• The latter game goes deep into
homophobia in the world setting,
with gay characters being
imprisoned. I considered going even
further and having characters face
execution, but decided against using
it as an example. With some groups I
would run that game. With others I
wouldn’t. What are your limits?
Would you not use that kind of overt
homophobia as a theme at all? What
themes just don’t interest you?
You’ve done your preparation. You’ve
got the players all back together. Sit
them down, let them relax, and then…
DO THIS THING!
PREVIOUSLY ON
There's been a gap between the first
and second sessions. As such, the
players are unlikely to remember
everything about their persona (or other
people's). That the game’s juice is about
people recognising elements of their
persona coming to haunt them, this is a
problem. Oh what to do?
Go around the group, asking everyone to
talk about their persona, and their
feelings for the other personas. If they
miss things which you're hoping to use
in the second session, mention them.
This is the trick which TV shows do – if
something is mentioned in a Previously
On, it's really telling you that it's going to
be relevant in what follows. Savvy
players will know it's a tell, but it's better
than them not recognising something
that should be relevant to them.
If the player adds things that weren't
mentioned in the first session, as long
as they don't openly contradict what
they said then or break the relationships
in some way, write them down and
consider using them. For many players,
their persona will have solidified in their
mind in the gap between sessions.
RESTARTING THE GAME
A little ritual can help enter the correct
mindspace for play. When everyone’s
got back up to speed ask all the players
to pick up their class dice and close
their eyes.
Tell them to lower the dice to the table,
then release it. Wait a few seconds. Ask
them to open their eyes.
Tell them they’re back in the game, and
begin.
ENCOUNTERS
You have a series of encounters
prepared, or are planning to improvise.
Get to it, GM.
OPEN-ENDED WORLD GENERATION
You have your plan for the encounters.
You know which of the personas’
backgrounds you plan to work into the
D&D conventions of the world they’re
exploring.
However, this only mean the players will
enter a fantasy world. You want to make
it feels like they’re entering their
fantasy world… which you then subvert.
As such, much as in persona
generation, you continue to ask
questions during play, of larger or
smaller details, from the players.
For example, if you decide the story is
set in the capital city of the largest
Fantasy Empire, you should feel free to
turn to the players and ask details as
they arise. For example:
What’s the symbol of the empire?
What colour armour do its knights wear?
How is the capital protected?
How many times has the Dark Lord ever
attacked the capital?
What was your favourite inn in the city?
Who lived there?
And so on. It’s worth stressing what the
questions above do. As in, they are
designed to add to the game world and
give colour. This is decoration over the
structure you have prepared.
It is also likely that whatever they give
you, you will immediately subvert it or
play with it in some way. The symbol of
the Empire will be on fire. The Capital’s
impassable walls have fallen. The Dark
Lord is on the throne. Your inn is on fire
and/or the innkeeper has been brewed
into beer.
You can push this technique as far as
you like. For example, run through a
dungeon they played as teenagers,
asking a player what’s around each
corner, and then subvert it. For groups
that like a lot of player agency, this is a
good way to include it. Other groups can
just keep it as an occasional spice. Find
your own way.
For less gonzo players, they may be
worried about the coherence of the
world. They’ll be right. It should be
stressed that a certain incoherence
may result from these choices. It’s
reduced by these being surface
additions to your underlying strong
structure, but the key thing is that
they’re traveling to their teenage
fantasy world. That the world-building
may be a bit broken is not a problem – it
is in fact the point. Applying more
cynical eyes to the chirpy D&D world is
actually a lot of fun. Or horrifying. Or
both.
In short: ask questions of the personas.
Fold those answers into the world.
Continue.
OPEN-ENDED PERSONA GENERATION
Much of the thrill of the game is about
taking normal people with real emotional
issues and giving them these
supernatural powers. As such, as the
GM you should try to remind players of
their persona’s real life even as they're
going through the world. Part of this will
be done solely through the weirdness of
the encounters – if they encounter
things that hark back to the personas’
real lives, it grounds things.
The other side of this is to continue to
ask players questions in game, and then
immediately fold that into the action. In
RPGs, as genre fiction, we tend to
breeze past things which would be
incredibly powerful if experienced for
real. By linking it to something the
persona experienced, then bringing that
back into the play, it can make it real.
It’s worth stressing, this is a key
moment to try to use the persona name
to make it clear you’re asking for a
fictional answer, not a confession of
some awful thing in a player’s real life.
For example...
<Character suffers an injury>
GM: As a kid, was your persona ever in
hospital?
Player: Yeah. She had an undetected
appendicitis. She almost died.
GM: This hurts worse than that.
This is even more true with emotional
elements of the game.
The Naomi Neo has met Fair Gold for the
first time. The GM needs to convey how
much they crave it.
GM: Has Naomi ever had an unrequited
crush?
Player: Sure.
GM: Tell me about it.
Player: Naomi crushed on Gareth for a
year. It was awful and sullen.
GM: You feel about this coin the way you
felt about them.
“Tell me about X thing” “Player tells
about X thing” “This is like that” is a
very DIE story rhythm.
This can also be used to gather
information about the present situation.
As in, asking the Player about a
persona’s background in their real
world, and instantly working it into the
game. For example…
GM: Hey, persona, tell me about your
favourite pet.
Player: Oh, Floofy. Floofy was the best
dog. He had enormous hair!
GM: Well, a dog the size of a rhino with
hair the size of an elephant has just
come out of the undergrowth, yapping
excitedly. Or at least, you think it’s
excitedly.
SESSION TIMING
I say the game tends to work in 2-4
sessions. Players being players, I
suspect that will likely be taken as two:
one for character generation, and the
other for the actual adventure. In
practice, there are two main problems in
running the adventure all in a single
session.
1) each character type gives a bunch of
sophisticated toys for players to mess
around with. It’s unlikely all players will
have used even a fraction of their
powers in a single session of adventure.
Hell, some of them may have used none
of them.
2) You may have generated much more
content than you can possibly fit.
If you’re trying to do the whole
adventure in a single session, I
recommend the following…
Have a toilet break halfway through the
time you’ve planned for the game.
During this break, take a moment to take
stock. How much of the adventure have
you got through? How much do the
players seem invested in playing? Are
you actually going to reach the end of
the game at the current rate?
If any of the above suggests that having
another session is a good idea, now is
the time to float the idea that, rather
than trying to get everything into this
session, you expand into a third (or
more!) session. If people agree, decide a
useful point to aim for by the end of a
session, and go for that. As in, think
where the next big cliffhanger is. A
cliffhanger to end the session is always
good.
To return to the hypothetical
recapitulation of a Tolkien-esque world
earlier, the adventure was to go from
outside the gates of Mordor, via
Shelob’s Lair and then towards Mount
Doom. Two hours into the session, the
GM realises they’re never going to reach
mount doom in the hour that’s
remaining. The GM suggests another
session, and the players agree. Looking
at the notes, the GM thinks it’s likely
they can get to Shelob’s lair. The GM
decides to end the session at the reveal
of Shelob, and paces the adventure to
reach there.
(The tricky one is if you have a little
more content for a session – like, an
hour more than the time you have, but
not enough for a full third session. In
that case, you choose between
cramming it in or generating some more
things to do in the next session. If
everyone seems excited to do another
session and timing is possible, I’d say
the extra work for a third session is
normally worthwhile.)
If that is undesirable – either due to real-
life timing issues or lack of player
interest or anything else – you will have
to work out how to get to the end. This is
likely to involve cutting various threads
from the spine of the adventure.
Remember: you can always bring the
Master to the players for the final
encounter.
Players may need a reminder that they
are working against a time limit and
should engineer their choices
appropriately. Before the final encounter
with the Master or an hour before the
end of the game (whatever comes first)
remind them that they’re finishing
shortly, and a player may wish to start
pushing their character’s narratives. It’s
now or never.
RUNNING THE FINAL ENCOUNTER
The final encounter is where all this has
been leading, and the confrontation with
the Master is going to end the game, one
way or another. Everyone will have to
decide whether to go home or not.
To remind you, these are the actual
rules...
1. The party can go home at any time
as long as everyone agrees. This is
all personas, including the Master.
2. Dead personas (i.e. Fallen) do not get
a vote. If the party votes to leave,
the Fallen are left behind.
In other words, the final encounter will
come from the above. At the simplest, it
will be a fight scene. Your heroes gather
and fight the Master. The second the
Master is defeated, they take the vote
and are transported home, leaving the
dead Master behind. This is the game's
core “if all else fails” story arc.
It can easily be something else.
THE RITUAL TO GO HOME
If the surviving personas seem to want
to mostly leave, ask each individually if
they “want to end the game”. Stop the
second someone says no.
Once all personas (including the GM’s
persona) agree, tell them all to close
their eyes...and then after a gap, tell
them to open them again.
They've escaped. Move to the “Leaving
the Dungeon” section.
However, it’s not likely to be as simple
as just walking up to the Master and
saying “Hey – wanna blow this joint?”
THE MASTER’S ALLIES AND ABILITIES
It could just be the Master by
themselves, but it's likely that a
satisfactory encounter may involve
multiple antagonists.
The Master’s character gives various
abilities to the GM’s persona, with the
Cheat Tokens being able to be spent to
perform various impossible tasks. This
includes magically summoning an ally.
As such, they can increase the intensity
encounter even mid-flow. Equally, they
can be used to perform something
extremely miraculous – as in, fulfilling a
persona's unlikely wish, prompting them
to them to switch sides (effectively
giving the Master an ally). Most of all,
even if you want the Master to stand
alone, a Cheat Token can be used to
simply avoid any blow – effectively
working to negate the hit.
In the case of the last one, be definitely
sure to pass the Cheat Token over to the
player. Seeing the Master is spending
their resources is key to selling the
moment – as well as describing the
impossibility of it. If it’s a killing blow,
see the killing blow, spend the token,
and then describe the injury healing.
See “Running the Master” for more.
If you're good, you should spend the
Cheat Tokens so the Master has none
when they die. If you have tokens left,
I'd advise the players not seeing they
have one. You don't have to spend them,
but if you let the Master be defeated
when you have one, they'll know you're
playing softball.
That said, better to fudge than make a
game boring. And equally, you can
easily manufacture a peril which burns
through a Master's Cheat Tokens –
especially as the Master will spend
them to protect what they really want or
desire. The Master is a character and a
character doesn’t necessarily make
good decisions. If they made good
decisions they wouldn’t be a god in a
pocket dimension.
For example, a Master’s desire is to
create a perfect art work. The final
confrontation with the party is in his
gallery, with his masterpiece in the
centre. The party sets it on fire, and the
Master immediately spends one of their
tokens to return it to normal and stop it
from being flammable. At which point
the players slash it to pieces, and they
spend another one. And so on…
WHAT HAS COME BEFORE
Before the encounter start, try to fold in
elements from earlier in the adventure.
If they made allies, have them show up.
If they made enemies, have them cause
trouble. Make sure the players feel their
actions have weight and consequences.
IRONIC PROBLEMS
This is the conclusion of the
antagonist’s arc. You could be looking
for ways to make their deal seem less
appealing. If they are a pure villain, you
can push this towards complete
reversal of their deal. They have clearly
got what they want, but at a cost which
makes it pointless. This is the “you have
eternal life, but as a statue” gambit.
Especially if you have to end the game in
a rush, something that direct can be
useful. Look for the sting in the tail of
what the Master wanted.
This can be useful in the next category
as well.
FLIPPING THE ANTAGONIST
If what the antagonist wanted is clearly
not all they wanted it to be, it may
become easier to talk them down or
convince them of the wrongness of their
position. The players and the antagonist
talking it out like grown-ups is
completely a justified end of the game. If
the bad guy agrees to go home, this is a
great conclusion. However...
PLAYERS FLIPPING
Some of the players may have been
tempted to stay at this point. This can,
for example, lead to them actively
joining the antagonist in a final battle. Or
forming their own side, or anything else.
Once all the living players agree to stay
or go, the game ends.
It's worth noting that players can flip
back and forth, being tempted and
changing their mind. It's also worth
noting the antagonist can decide to
leave and the players decide to stay,
and any combination.
In other words – any or all combinations
are good.
FALLEN BECOMING LIVING
There's a whole section about “Running
the Fallen” in the Running The
Archetypes section, but the conclusion
is a good place for Fallen to become
human again, and so be able to go home
(or at least get a vote on going home or
not). At the least, a Fallen who kills the
Master will live again – as the Master is
a persona.
As the Gamesmaster, you may be
looking for a way for Fallen players to
become human in the final battle,
usually with another player making
some manner of sacrifice. As said, more
on this in “Running the Fallen”.
IMPASSE AND THE END OF THE WORLD
It's possible that you have a situation
where the players cannot agree
whether or not to go home, and there is
no easy resolution.
Equally, there is the logical question
some players will hit upon – why
actually make the decision now? Why
not stay for another week and then go
home?
The game is set in a pocket universe. It
is not stable. It will shortly cease to be,
killing everyone unless a decision can
be reached in good time – the
dissonance between some people
wanting to be there and some people
not wanting to be there being the
problem. In this final encounter, this
should come to a boil. If the
conversation is extending, the GM
should start showing reality falling
apart. Infinite monsters! The sky falling!
Whatever!
If they can’t come to a decision one way
or another, everyone dies.
It’s also worth reiterating that the
second they make their decision as a
group, whether it's to stay or go, the
universe will actually stabilise.
That’s the ultimate push to make a call,
but you should increase the dissonance
in several steps. For example, in the
final combat, start one round saying the
world is starting to fall apart. Start the
next saying that the world is going to
end when the round stops.
It will likely turn to violence. Players
gonna player.
Other groups simply won’t – if it's simply
“I'm not going to fight my friend” then
look for ways to escalate the situation,
one way or another. The question of
most Western drama is "What is this
person's true character?" True
character is defined by action – what
someone will or won't do. If they don't
fight, you essentially end up escalating
towards it being a question of someone
fighting or dying when the world ends,
or compromising. This is interesting.
If it's because one of them is a Fallen
and they don't want to leave them, you
may want to suggest a way to
reanimate someone. Start with “Let
someone sacrifice themself and let the
other character have their life” then go
to other methods. See the “Running the
Fallen” later for more on this. Or course,
you will also be increasing the peril, so
it's a question of leaving the Fallen
behind or dying with them. You meanie.
THAT’S ALL
You can go to the next section now.
LEAVING THE DUNGEON
And lo, the game ends. The point here is
to swiftly wrap to a denouement.
Remember all the rules for maintaining
atmosphere.
Generally speaking, these are the core
things which happen upon their return.
Any or all can be warped depending on
what seems narratively satisfying.
Describe them.
• They will be back exactly where they
disappeared from.
• While minor injuries and scrapes will
be healed, any larger injuries
(especially those from a deliberate
sacrifice) will remain. For example, if
someone cuts their hand off to
impress a god, get a new cyber arm
or return a Fallen persona to life,
they will be missing that appendage.
• Anyone who remained in Die will be
missing.
• If you were playing in a public place,
no one will have noticed you were
gone.
(You may note that one of these rules
was not true of the comic of DIE – the
characters appeared elsewhere when
returning to the real world.)
Here's some things which could be
included in the denouement if they add
to a persona’s arc.
• Desiccated corpses or skeletons of
similar detritus of those left behind.
• No one else (other than the players)
remembering the people left behind
in Die. Interesting elements of their
life may be merged with some of the
remaining characters existence.
• Reality is changed in a small, but
significant way related to a player’s
choices.
Make the scene short, dramatic, scary,
and then hard cut to the aftermath.
Ask them "How has this experience
changed how you act in the real world?
What do you do differently?" It's likely
you'll want to say something in
response to this. Work around the
players, and let them say their piece,
but keep it short. If you have an
additional note to add to the player, say
it after theirs. It should respond to their
choices and help end their character
arc.
There's talk on what a satisfying arc for
a character is elsewhere, but the core is
whether or not a character overcame
their core drive or submitted to it. It is
likely to be ironic in some way. You are
essentially looking for a grace note. It's
likely one good idea will strike you, in
which case run with it – especially in
terms of the fate of the Master.
To give two examples from playtests, in
one game the Master was simply
someone killing groups of players at a
con to gain eternal life. They returned
and his body was desiccated in the
circle. This is a simple, gore horror
ending. In a later playtest, the Master
was an aggrieved writer and peer of
several of the players – he'd written one
great short story, and then his career
flatlined while his friend’s took off. One
persona was a young writer, who
actually did hero worship this one
story... and her career was taking off
now. At the end, he is consumed by Die,
and they return to the con... and that
evening the young writer wins a Hugo
award, for a short story she has no
memory of writing, going by the same
name as the one by the now-vanished
Master. This is a somewhat ornate one.
In practice, a simple creepy, moving or
atmospheric line adding to the player’s
statement is what you want to do. Make
their story better, not undercut it.
For example…
Player: Leaving Susan behind in that
weird world has just changed
everything for her. She knows she’s got
to change her life. She’s going to write
the novel.
GM: It gets picked up and released.
When your first author’s copy arrives,
there’s a strange typo in it. You ask after
it, and it’s the only one in the whole
print-run that’s like it. The printer can’t
explain it. The dedication has changed. It
reads “I’m so proud of you. Love Susan.”
NOT LEAVING THE DUNGEON
In playtests, this has proved to be the
less likely choice. The story DIE tells
about whether or not to come home to
the real world is culturally loaded – the
Real World is something we must come
to terms with, so in fiction the choice of
reality over fiction is the norm.
Especially in a game where your choice
also limits the rest of the group, it
becomes a harder thing for a player to
do. When designing the dilemma, we
have loaded the question towards going
home.
Players who have their persona choose
to stay, despite the choices of the
people who want to leave, are –
culturally speaking – playing the bad
guys. Many will be consciously aware of
this, and have stepped into that role
willingly for the sake of improving the
game via drama or because loyalty to
their character’s arc takes them down
this dark path. As such, if they play the
baddies, they are aware they will likely
lose, and revel in it. The Night King isn’t
going to end up on the Iron Throne.
There are exceptions to this, of course,
and if a player is seemingly emotionally
agitated by the way the game is going,
it’s worth pausing the game to check in
on them and make sure everyone is fine.
The section on Bleed in the Advice for
Gamesmasters section has more notes
on this. You may think stopping will hurt
the drama. You will be right. But drama
is not worth someone’s emotional
happiness. We are here to have a nice
time.
(There’s also an irony there, isn’t there?
If you don’t check in with a distressed
person at this point, in a story which
likely says you should choose reality
above fantasy, you have chosen
fantasy above reality. That it’s likely
done to a persona who is doing likewise
is definitely an irony.)
I digress – this is hopefully a fringe case.
If they choose to say, ask each player
for a brief image of what their life is like
in this fantasy world. Then, as above,
respond to it in a way that adds depth.
If they choose to return to the real
world, the formula is if they make it REAL
you add an afterthought to make it
WEIRD. If they make it WEIRD you add an
afternote to make it REAL.
If they stay in the fantasy world, it’s
different. It’s already likely weird. What
you should be looking for is whether
they make it SAD or not.
If someone does an upbeat view of their
fantasy life, with no showing of a
downside, it’s likely you will add a SAD
beat at least in a more serious game.
There are two tactics – a short sentence
which undercuts the triumph in the
fantasy life or a sentence of something
that’s happening in the real world, made
worse by their absence. “What do your
friends miss about you in real life?” Is
always a good question.
For example, for one to add an element
of poignancy…
Player: I end up becoming the head of
the King’s Cavalry, bringing justice to all
the lands of Anathon! Imagine me, riding
ever onwards, to the horizon at the
head of a column of soldiers.
GM: We cut back to Earth, years later.
Your mother is in your room, finally
tidying away the toy soldiers from the
shelf in your childhood bedroom. She
does it in a business-like fashion. Heroic,
in its own way.
THE FALLEN PERSONAS LEFT BEHIND
Asking the player “how does your
absence impact the world?” Is a good
way to get closure. Add a SAD or WEIRD
response to them.
Players may want to have an ironic
scene of their Fallen in the world. Who
am I to say no?
AND THEN…
No matter what you do, when everyone
finishes, applaud everyone and thank
them for playing. They were great.
You should also practise a little
aftercare and decompression.
Aftercare is a phrase lifted from the
S&M community, and is about leaving
room to emotionally support people and
let them recover. I would advise for
some time after a game to just unpack
with one another, talk about what got to
them and their feelings about what
occurred.
This is another good reason to plan so
your session does not run up to the time
someone has to run for a train. If
someone has already left, check in on
them as soon as possible.
Once you’ve all done that, sweep up as
many of the character sheets as you
can and (if you have one) slide them into
the Box of Crap, especially if they died.
Some players may want to keep them,
and you can let them, but definitely
appear interested in keeping them,
especially if they died. If ask, just smile.
No reason. No reason at all.
WHAT THE RULES ARE FOR
These rules are the procedural rules.
They are intended to simulate the
fantasy universe the story is happening
in. It is designed to be light and based on
judgement calls, while having a
pretence of simulating an objective
universe.
Generally speaking...
1. Anything reasonable to happen
should just happen. If there's no
chance of it not happening, it
happens. This is the majority of
things. For example, a character
walks across the room. No dice
roll required.
2. The same goes for when the
players are bringing their
characters' skills to bear in trying
to achieve a goal and there is a
no real question whether they'll
succeed or not. For example,
playing a roguish thief, they try to
pick a fairly normal lock. As
there’s no time pressure, this
seems entirely within their
abilities. They pick the lock.
Conversely, trying to pick a lock
in the middle of a melee sounds
like the sort of thing that a dice
roll makes sense for.
3. Try and be consistent in the
application of the rules. If you've
chosen that a thing should be a
dice roll in one situation, an
identical situation should also
require a dice roll. Of course,
there's a lot of leeway in terms of
"identical". For example, earlier in
the adventure a Wisdom roll was
required to find the will to attack
a ten-mouthed Katanga beast.
The next time someone tries to
do it, they should do the same.
Unless – for example – the GM
rules it only happens the first
time any individual attacks a ten-
mouthed Katanga beast.
We go into detail in the following
section, and talk around uses of the
rules, but you can find a stripped-down
version of the rules on the Cheat Sheets
in the handouts.
THE CORE MECHANIC
THE CORE MECHANIC IN A PARAGRAPH
The Master sets a difficulty for whatever
a character is trying to do. The person
controlling the character assembles a
number of six-sided dice equal to the
relevant statistic. They roll that dice
pool. Any 4+ counts as a success. If you
match or exceed the difficulty in
successes, the character pulls it off.
There’s a bunch of minor things on top
of that, in terms of adding more dice for
other reasons and interpreting the
results, but that’s the core.
THE CORE MECHANIC IN MORE THAN A
PARAGRAPH
All characters inside the fantasy world
have six statistics. These are...
Strength: how strong you are! How good
you are at hitting things! General melee
stuff!
Dexterity: how nimble and dextrous you
are! How good you are at shooting
things! Sneaking! The occasional melee
weapon like a rapier!
Constitution: how healthy you are! Do
you get a cold? Do you bleed out on the
floor after getting stabbed by someone
with the aforementioned rapier?
Intelligence: how much stuff you know!
Fancy book learnings! Most wizard-type
magic!
Wisdom: how much you understand
stuff and how much emotional control
you have for those sensations! Most
priest type magic!
Charisma: your ability to persuade GM-
controlled characters into doing stuff!
Getting a discount while shopping! Soft
human skills!
It’s worth noting these are the six
Dungeons & Dragons statistics,
generally used for the same purpose. In
a real way, the one which differs most is
Wisdom, which also defines your
Willpower (which is used to determine a
character’s capacity to resist emotion
control).
Each statistic is represented by a
number, representing how good (or
terrible) they are:
0 – Incapable
1 – Terrible
2 – Average
3 – Elite
4 – Heroic
5 – Ludicrously Heroic
6 – Seriously, this is getting stupid now
7 – Gandalf riding a Balrog playing Guitar
Hero solos on Expert with his eyes
closed
To stress, everyone you have ever met
in your life has a 2 in all their stats. If
you’ve met an Olympian, they may have
a 3. DIE’s heroes are much better than
the greatest people on Earth.
This is how you work out whether any
character (whether controlled by a
player or the GM) succeeds or fails.
1. Decide what the character is
trying to do. For example, if
presented with a closed heavy
gate of the portcullis style, you
may decide to try and lift it to
open it.
2. The GM assigns a numeric
challenge difficulty to the task.
Difficultly 1 is the standard.
Difficulty 2 is something which is
unlikely for a normal human.
 Difficulty 3 is literally impossible
for a normal human without
special training, and even then
it’s extremely unlikely. Higher
difficulties are even harder. For
example, this gate is ludicrously
heavy. Normal people would find
lifting it extremely difficult. In
which case, it's given a difficulty
of 2.
3. Identify which statistic is
relevant to a task. For example, if
a gate needs to be lifted, it's likely
Strength is the relevant stat.
4. Collect the number of six-sided
dice equal to the relevant
statistic. This is the dice pool.
Unless the game explicitly says
otherwise, if it says add a dice, it
means add a six-sided dice. For
example, if you have a Strength
of 4, you would collect four dice.
5. Decide if there’s anything which
makes the task easier. If so, add
advantages. For every
advantage, add a dice. For
example, if you were a trained
weight-lifter, you may add a dice.
6. Decide if there’s anything which
makes the task harder. If so, add
disadvantages. For every two
disadvantages, increase the
difficulty by 1. If there’s an odd
number of disadvantages, add
The Bad Dice to the dice pool. For
example. if you were heavily
injured, the difficulty may be
increased by 1.
7. Roll the dice. Ideally, on a flat
surface. If you can roll dice on a
vertical surface, YouTube
yourself doing this immediately,
people will be impressed.
8. Any dice which rolls 4 or higher
than counts as a success. A roll
of 6 (or higher) counts as a
success, and triggers any
relevant Special ability the
character possesses. If the Bad
Dice is included and rolls 4+, then
remove one success.
9. Compare the number of
successes rolled to the difficulty
the GM set. If the number is equal
to or higher than the difficulty,
they succeed. For example, the
player rolled three successes,
and the difficulty was 2. They lift
the heavy metal gate. Gate
defeated!
That's the core mechanic. There's a few
complications and ways to interpret it
for storytelling, but it's all built on top of
that sequence. Gather dice. Roll dice.
Count successes. Compare to the
difficulty of the challenge. If you match
or beat it, you're sorted.
Almost everything in the game is based
on the above. If in doubt, you can stick
to it and get the game ambling along
well enough.
THE PLAYERS’ CLASS DICE
Each of the players has a special dice of
their own. Generally speaking, each
class’s character sheet will say when
you get to add it to the dice pool. Unless
the rules state otherwise, it is read like a
normal dice. As in, anything 4 or higher
is a success and anything 6 or higher is
a Special.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
You may note steps 5 and 6 of the core
mechanic mentioned these.
Advantages and Disadvantages are
triggers when there's other factors
beyond the basic difficulty of a task or a
character's statistics at play. They
presently share a name with
“Advantage” and “Disadvantage” in
Dungeons & Dragons, but aren’t
mechanically similar. I mention this, in
case you’re confused, but I figured
they’re best to stick with as any
alternative I thought of was either
obtuse, gimmicky, made me shudder to
say or all three.
For each present factor in the situation
which makes a task easier, add an
advantage.
For each present factor in the situation
makes a task harder, add a
disadvantage.
Advantages are cumulative. As are
disadvantages. Neither cancels each
other out.
For every advantage you add a dice to
the dice pool.
For every two disadvantages you add
one to the difficulty. If there is a spare
disadvantage left over, add THE BAD
DICE to the dice pool.
If THE BAD DICE rolls 4+ it removes one
success from the dice pool.
THE BAD DICE is a D6. THE BAD DICE
should be obviously identifiable – you
may place it on a podium in the middle of
the table or in the area on the rules
Cheat Sheet from the handouts. At the
start of the sessions the players may
wish to discuss which of the dice is THE
BAD DICE. Dice which rolled particularly
poorly in a previous session are prime
candidates for being punished by taking
on the shameful mantle of THE BAD DICE.
Never use multiple THE BAD DICE, as
otherwise the ceremonial scapegoating
of the dice will prove ineffective. We
must train the dice to be good dice. We
must believe all dice can be saved.
Kate The Gatelifter approaches an even
heavier gate. The GM ascertains it has a
difficulty of 3, and that Kate should use
her Strength, which is four. However,
Kate has a Strength spell cast upon her
(which gives an advantage to strength
challenges) and she's a trained
weightlifter (which gives an advantage
to any test to see if she can lift
something). Unfortunately, she's also
drunk, which gives her a disadvantage
on all physical tasks.
Her final dice pool is four dice for her
Strength, two dice for the two
advantages and THE BAD DICE for her
single disadvantage.
She rolls 4, 5, 3, 1, 4 and 4. THE BAD DICE
is a 5. She has three successes
(actually four, but with one removed as
THE BAD DICE was also 4+). She
successfully lifts the gate.
Hypothetically, if Kate had a second
disadvantage – perhaps from being
injured as well as drunk – rather than
adding THE BAD DICE to the dice pool,
the difficulty would have been increased
from 3 to 4. We also may wonder how
Kate ended up drunk and hurting
herself. Pull it together, Kate. You're on
an adventure.
It should be noted that many of the rules
that follow are actually just codified
ways of adding advantages and
disadvantages to a specific situation. A
GM should consider them as examples
of things which a GM may decide cause
an advantage or disadvantage.
CRITICAL FAILURES
If the dice pool results in no successes
and at least one dice is a 1 then things
go particularly badly. The GM should
ascertain what seems suitable, as
derived from the fiction.
For example, Gatelifter Kate is over-
excited by her successful gate lifting.
She's trying it again. This time she rolls a
3, 2, 2 and 1. Something has gone
terribly wrong. The GM decides that
she's sprained her back, and will cause
a disadvantage to any tasks that
involve her back.
It is important to relate the level of
punishment to the exact nature and
difficulty of the task.
For example, Chatty Cecilia is trying to
talk a shopkeeper into selling stuff
cheaply. She rolls a critical failure. The
GM says that Cecilia explodes. The
player asks whether that seems fair.
The GM realises they've got all excited,
so instead says that Cecilia has
offended the shopkeeper, and now she
has a disadvantage on all social
interactions with people from the village.
For most non-perilous feats, an ongoing
disadvantage resulting from a critical
failure is a good guideline. For perilous
feats, an ongoing disadvantage and
losing a Health (or some other form of
physical hurt) is a good guideline.
SPECIAL ABILITIES
In addition to counting as a normal
success, each 6 or higher on a dice roll
can be used to activate a relevant
Special ability. Special abilities are
signified on character sheets with the
word Special with the text of the
special’s effects after it. For example…
Special: Increase Guard by one.
So any six in the pool could be used to
increase a character’s Guard by one. As
per the usual guard rules, it couldn’t
increase beyond its maximum. It’s
essentially a way to recover Guard in
combat, and you’ll find it primarily
attached to defensive weapons.
A special ability can only be activated if
the source of the special ability is
relevant to the challenge.
Nimble Steve is trained with his rapier,
which gives him the Special “Increase
Guard By 1.” In combat he rolls a 6, and
he activates the ability to increase his
Guard. Later, Nimble Steve is in a
drinking contest, and rolls a 6. He cannot
activate the special ability as his fencing
skills are irrelevant when downing
hardcore spirits.
SKILLED OR UNSKILLED?
In DIE all tasks are related to one of the
statistics. If we say that astrophysics is
based on Intelligence, all players – no
matter what their training – would have
to roll their intelligence to succeed in
any time-based astrophysics dilemma
which requires a roll. This would mean a
fantasy cleric with intelligence 4 would
have the same chance of succeeding as
an astrophysics professor with
intelligence 4. This may seem silly.
DIE’s skill system works on an ad hoc
basis. If it seems likely a character has
no training in a task, the GM should add
disadvantages to the task. There are
some character classes which go the
other way, explicitly adding advantages
when performing certain sorts of tasks.
You can consider this being “expert” in
a subject.
Conceptually speaking, if one player in
the group is clearly defined as a thief, it
is fair to assume that other characters
who have not explicitly defined
themselves as thieves would get
disadvantages when performing thief-
related tasks.
As in all things DIE, consistency within
the game is more important than
consistency between games. Ideally,
you want all players to feel special,
which means their character can do
things the other characters can’t.
INTERPRETING DICE
The core mechanics state that if a
player matches or exceeds the difficulty
they succeed. That's still true. Don't
worry. We're not going to change the
rules at this point.
However, the number of successes can
be a way of ascertaining the degree of
success. If a player's roll exceeds the
difficulty, the GM can rule that they
achieve it with a greater success. This
can purely be in a manner of style or
result in game advantage or both.
Nimble Steve is attempting to join a
dance college. The GM sets the difficulty
level of 2 to dance to a suitable level.
Nimble Steve rolls 5 successes – more
than twice what he needed. The GM
says the dance was by far the best
dance student so far – and he gains an
advantage when trying to influence the
clearly starstruck dance students.
Equally, falling short of the difficulty can
be ascertained as a degree of failure.
The effect of this depends on the nature
of the task. Some tasks could be semi-
completed (for example, climbing a
wall). Other tasks are either succeed or
fail – though a GM should have an eye on
trying to “fail forward” leading to a more
interesting situation than simply
blocking the progress of the adventure.
Nimble Steve is trying to jump a chasm.
It's difficulty 4. He rolls 3 successes, and
the GM says that he's on the far edge of
the cliff, hanging on. Perhaps he can
scramble up next turn? If he rolled 1 or 2,
perhaps he would have landed halfway
up the cliff, hanging onto a vine and now
has to try and work out what on earth to
do.
In short, failing to hit the full total may
solve the immediate problem, but create
a different problem.
For example, Naomi Neo later is trying to
hack open a door. It’s a difficulty 2. She
rolls a single success. The Master notes
the door opens, but a guard is on the
other side, attracted to the noise. Naomi
is through the door, and now has a
different problem to deal with.
Equally, if you set high difficulties, be
aware that failure will be more common.
Consider allowing successes to be
cumulative across multiple rounds to
match a target.
For example, Naomi Neo is a trained
hacker, trying to break into a closed
system during a combat. The GM sets a
difficulty of 4. She only rolls one
success. The Master says they’re a
quarter into the system. She keeps
hacking while her friends protect her.
“Nothing changes” is generally
speaking an uninteresting result for the
roll.
In situations of life or death you can use
the level of failure to ascertain damage.
A useful guideline may be the amount of
failure equalling the amount of damage.
Slovenly Suzy is having a walk down a
corridor in a dungeon when she steps
on a trap. A jet of flame shoots down the
corridor. Dodging it is difficulty 3.
Slovenly Suzy rolls one success, failing
by two. The GM says that the player
loses two Health. Ouch.
Unless the story has made a situation
dangerous, a partial success should be
a partial success. Conversely, if danger
is set up, the partial success is the
amount of danger you avoid.
For example, if you are trying to climb up
a wall, a partial success would likely be
getting halfway up the wall. If you are
trying to dodge a flamethrower, how
close you get to the difficulty
determines how much damage you
take.
In short: the dice exist to be interpreted
in an interesting fashion. More
successes equal more cool stuff. The
wider the level of failure, the worse
things are. However, it should be noted,
that truly terrible results are best saved
for a genuine critical failure. This is one
thing which makes players fear critical
failures.
GROUP TASKS
Sometimes a task is one which an entire
group of characters can do
simultaneously and all contribute to
simultaneously. In this case, set a total
difficulty and pool all the characters’
successes.
Nimble Steve, Slovenly Suzy and
Average Annie are in a tug of war
competition against some orcs. The
Master says that the orcs will provide a
difficulty of four. The players all roll their
dice pool, and total their success. If they
manage to have four between them,
they beat the orcs. Go players! Players
are strong like ox.
This method may be used when players
are all simultaneously trying to perform
a difficult task, to avoid having a
scenario where if one fails, they all fail.
This is most used when a group is trying
to sneak into an area. This simulates the
best character helping out the least
capable characters.
Nimble Steve, Slovenly Suzy and
Average Annie are running from a
cohort of orcs. They reach a cliff face.
The GM ascertains to climb it is difficulty
2. Nimble Steve rolls 4 successes. Suzy
and Annie roll 1 success each. The GM
says Nimble Steve's player reaches the
top at double-quick speed – and can
throw down a rope to assist the other
players get up in time. As the group
would have required 6 successes in
total, this seems fair to the GM.
Of course, in some cases the character
may not wish to actually help out their
fellow characters.
The GM could have given Steve options,
saying that he could instead start to
bombard the orcs with rocks. Nimble
Steve considers the options, and
suggests perhaps he can just run and
leave his friends? The GM says yes.
Slovenly Suzy and Average Annie,
halfway up a wall, being bombarded by
orc javelins, are giving Nimble Steve
serious side-eye.
ASSISTING ON CHALLENGES
Rather than setting a large difficulty to
the group, sometimes a task doesn’t
work like that. It’s one person really
doing it, and others just helping out. For
example, only one person can
interrogate a target or pick a lock… but
sometimes they can help advice or give
backup.
Select one character – advisably the
one with the best dice pool – and add
one dice for every individual with skills
assisting.
Gatelifter Kate has recovered from her
sprained back, and come back to have
another go at that gate and found it’s
been replaced by a door. She's brought
two friends with her – Brawny Belinda
and Hefty Herman. While she only has a
Dexterity of 2, her friends oddly know a
bit about lock picking. Kate has a go at
picking the lock while her two friends
give advice. Gatelifter Kate rolls four dice
– the two of her dice pool, and two extra
dice for the two characters giving her
help.
The most common use of this rule is for
groups of GM-controlled characters
assisting each other in combat. Rather
than rolling individually for each
creature, roll once and add one dice for
everyone piling onto the individual hero.
Gatelifter Kate has opened the gate.
Behind it is an army of orcs. The front
row rush her, and Kate finds herself
attacked by three orcs. All the orcs have
a Strength of 2, so a dice pool of 2. As
they're all attacking the same target,
rather than rolling individually they roll a
single dice pool of 4. (Two based on their
Strength, and an extra two for the two
assisting orcs.)
You may note that this is just a specific
example of adding advantages to a roll,
as described earlier. It's a preferable
way of handling a situation to just rolling
a lot.
In a combat situation it is most likely to
be used by characters of an identical
type attacking simultaneously. However
a character may delay their action to
assist another character’s.
Yes, we’ve just mentioned combat. Don’t
worry. We get to it soon.
SETTING DIFFICULTIES
The key takeaway: look at the situation.
Try to be consistent. Don’t stress too
much.
A dice pool system has many strengths,
but its main weakness is that it’s hard to
predict the exact odds of someone
succeeding or failing rather than a
straight D20 or percentage-based
system. Here are some useful things to
consider when setting difficulty.
Key point – as long as the game is
consistent, anything is fine. Consistency
(see “Generating Rules” later) is what’s
important in DIE. If one game has
climbing a wall as 3 difficulty and
another has it with 1 difficulty, who
cares? Maybe walls are much harder to
climb in this dimension. All DIE games
literally happen in their own dimension,
after all.
However, it’s worth noting difficulty
increases quickly in DIE’s system.
• A difficulty of 1 is what an average
person will pull off 75% of the time.
• A difficulty of 1 with a bad dice (i.e.
one disadvantage) is what an
average person will pull off 50% of
the time.
• A difficulty of 2 is something that an
average person will pull off 25% of
the time.
It’s worth noting that all our heroes
have a minimum of “average person” in
all their stats. With their higher stats,
they will be pulling off things which
normal people simply can’t. A Dexterity
4 character can with no training do
acrobatics like the Gold Medal winning
Olympian (Dexterity 3 plus advantage
for training, so a dice pool of four).
For some math for higher dice pools’
chances…
For a three-dice pool, a character will
roll…
Zero successes: 12.50%
At least 1 success: 87.5%
At least 2 successes: 50%
3 successes: 12.5%
For a four-dice pool, a character will
roll…
Zero successes: 6.25%
At least 1 success: 93.75%
At least 2 successes: 68.75%
At least 3 successes: 31.25%
4 successes: 6.25%
That should be enough to let you know
the chances.
In terms of actually setting the level,
here’s two basic philosophies to guide
you…
1) One is based on treating the
world as a simulation and just
following from the
character’s abilities.
2) The other is fiat.
(There’s a third about examining the
analogous approach, but that’s so
complicated and perverse, I don’t even
want to suggest it, in case you actually
go and do it.)
For an objective approach, to charm a
guard to let you past them you need to
beat their Wisdom stat as a difficulty.
So, for an average guard, difficulty 2.
However, equally, you may add
disadvantages depending on the
situation – for example, if the guard is
petrified of being executed by their
boss, you can add a disadvantage.
For fiat it’s just sticking to a rule of
thumb. Something that most folks could
probably do? 1. If it’s impressive? 2. If
it’s Olympian? 3. If it’s cinematic? 4. So
for a Guard, I’d likely set a difficulty of 2.
It’s not something everyone does. If the
guard doesn’t really care that much, I’d
set difficulty 1.
If you’re leaning towards setting high
difficulties, as we said earlier, definitely
be aware of the interpreting dice and
failing forwards. If you fail to charm the
guard completely, the successes should
still mean something. If you nearly get it,
they’ll do it for a bribe or a favour. If you
get a success, maybe you don’t get
past, but they definitely don’t alert
anyone you were here.
This is good practise anyway, but
especially in these cases.
It’s also worth noting the other thing to
modify difficulty is the approach the
character is using to do it – as DIE’s
system is based almost completely on
your statistics, it will mean that
someone trying to cast some magical
ability (likely rolling on their Wisdom to
hit a difficulty level) and someone trying
to charm someone (likely rolling on their
Charisma) could have the same
difficulty. You may want to change the
difficulty level depending on the tactic.
For example, a hero trying to climb a
rock face may find it a difficulty 3
Strength or Dexterity test – but a Neo
with a teleport ability may simply
teleport up there, with no test required.
As I said. Look at the situation. Try to be
consistent. Don’t stress too much.
COMBAT
Combat has the most extensive set of
rules, but they're all an extrapolation of
the core principles above.
When the GM ascertains that Combat
has begun, we generate Guard,
ascertain Initiative order and then
proceed through a series of combat
rounds until combat ends.
1) Generate Guard for all characters.
2) Determine Initiative Order.
3) Everyone takes an action in initiative
order.
4) Repeat step 3 until the combat is
over.
GUARD AND HEALTH
These are what decide whether you are
alive or dead.
• Guard represents your ability to
generally dodge, stay out of trouble
and your “Guard”.
• Health is your ability to actually stay
on your feet if you’re hit.
A player starts the game with Health
equal to their Constitution. If their
Constitution increases at any point in
the game, their health increases. If it
decreases, it does likewise.
Unless otherwise stated, a character
cannot have either Guard or Health
higher than their Dexterity or
Constitution respectively.
At the start of a normal combat, a
character sets their Guard to equal their
ability. Guard replenishes quickly, while
Health requires active healing.
If a combat starts without warning, it's
possible the GM may rule a character
starts with less or even no Guard.
Nimble Steve is on guard, hand on
sword when the orcs rush the camp.
Slovenly Suzy is having a nap. She
starts awake to find the party attacked
by orcs. Nimble Steve has Dexterity 4,
so has a Guard of 4. Suzy has a
Dexterity of 2, so would normally have 2
Guard, but the GM notes that as she's
lying on the floor, without a weapon and
rubbing sleep from her eyes, she's
entirely flat-footed and has zero Guard.
In borderline cases, you may let the
players roll their Dexterity as a dice pool
and any successes become their Guard.
In the above situation, the GM decides to
be kind, and says that as she’s
surprised, Slovenly Suzy should roll her
Dexterity pool to see how quickly she’s
managed to wake up. She rolls two dice
(as her Dexterity is 2) and rolls a 3 and a
2. With no successes, she’s still got a
Guard of zero. Sometimes it doesn’t
matter if you’re kind.
Let’s put this in bold:
Health does not regenerate by itself.
Guard primarily regenerates whenever
the character gets a chance to take a
break between fights.
There are ways for Guard to be
generated during a combat, either by
taking an action to recover your footing
or a character’s Special abilities.
When a character has no Health left,
they fall unconscious and are at risk of
death. (See later.)
INITIATIVE
This determines turn order for all
characters.
Each character rolls their Dexterity and
states their number of successes. The
GM rolls for each group of combatants
they control, noting their number of
successes. All the combatants of the
same sort act at the same time. The
results are then arranged in order, from
most successes to least successes.
This is the initiative order.
At the moment, there are no Specials
which effect the initiative roll.
Initiative Tiebreakers
If a player’s and a GM-controlled
character’s number of successes are
equal, the player character acts first in
the order. If players roll identically and
have equal Dexterity, the order is
ascertained in clockwise order from the
GM. For ties of the GM-controlled
characters, the GM decides which order
GM-controlled characters act in.
Nimble Steve, Slovenly Suzy and
Average Annie are fighting some orcs
and their boss, Orc-O the Orcward. The
players roll their Dexterity and the GM
rolls for the orcs. Steve gets 5
successes, Suzy gets 1, Annie gets 3,
Orc-O gets 2 and the orcs (rolling as a
group) get zero. The initiative order is
Steve, Annie, Orc-O, Suzy and finally the
orcs.
THE COMBAT ROUND
In initiative order, each player’s
character declares what they’re doing
and then does it.
If a player’s character is attacking
another player’s character, it happens
in this turn order.
If a character wishes to defer their
action, they can reserve their chance to
act until later in the round, interjecting
between any two combatants. They can
declare an action triggered by an event
occurring, if they wish (for example, by
saying they will attack anyone who
comes through the door with their axe.
The moment a character passes
through the door, they would be
attacked.)
A combat round simulates a period of
roughly five to ten seconds in the
combat. You can attempt any task you
could achieve in that period of time. The
key word is “roughly.” We encourage a
cinematic understanding of five to ten
seconds.
It is reasonable to move a little and
perform an action, such as charging and
attacking someone or diving through a
door and slamming it behind you. If the
GM feels a player is trying to perform too
much in a round, the disadvantages
rules are there, waving at you, trying to
garner your attention.
For example, Nimble Steve wants to
rush over, grab a sword off the floor and
attack an orc with it. As this is going to
involve some fumbling to grab the
weapon, the Master says that the task
has a disadvantage.
You can move a short distance as part
of any action which doesn’t require
intense singular concentration. If you
just move and nothing else, you can
move further – about twice as far, which
we call medium distance.
You may note all these are relative
systems. Ranges are melee (as in,
directly by each other), near (a little way
away – near enough you can get to them
quickly, far away enough that you can’t
reach out and just attack them), medium
(to get to each other, you’d have to leg
it) and far (you’d have to leg it for
multiple rounds to get to them). In terms
of getting to people, I use the following…
Melee: You’re by each other so can
attack in melee.
Close: You can move and attack in the
same round.
Medium: You can move close enough to
attack next round.
Far: You’ll have to spend at least one
turn to move to Medium.
If you want to use a map or counters or
similar to explain space, you should feel
free. If you’re an experienced player,
you likely have preferences. If you’re an
inexperienced player, you may have a
preference too. Preferences are great.
Have fun.
ATTACKING
Attacks are performed by the core
mechanic. A dice pool is assembled
depending on the character's relevant
abilities and rolled against a challenge
difficulty.
Generally speaking, a melee attack
normally rolls a dice pool based on a
character's Strength. A ranged attack
normally rolls a dice pool based on a
character's Dexterity.
The standard challenge difficulty is the
target character's defence.
Violent Trevor attacks an orc with his
fancy sword. His Strength is 4, so he
rolls four dice. The orc defence is 2,
meaning the challenge is 2.
After a character rolls their dice pool for
an attack, the character causes one hit
for matching the difficulty level and an
extra hit for every extra success above
it.
Violent Trevor rolls four successes. He
causes one hit for matching the orc’s
defence of 2, and two more hits for the
extra successes.
DAMAGE
Each hit removes one Guard or Health.
Unless otherwise stated, Guard is
removed before health.
The orc has 2 Guard, and 2 Health.
Violent Trevor caused three hits. The orc
loses both its Guard and one Health.
If a hit removes a Health we call it a
Wound. This is normally used for special
abilities which can only activate if a hit
is a Wound.
For example, a Ghoul has a paralyse
Special ability if it wounds a player. It
causes two hits a character with 2
Guard and 2 Health. The character loses
2 Guard, but is not paralysed, as they
did not lose a Health (i.e. they were not
wounded.)
PAIN (AKA THAT REALLY HURTS!)
A character can lose Guard with no
penalty. However, if a character's
Health is less than its maximum, a
character may well suffer a
disadvantage to their dice pools due to
being in enormous pain.
If a character is at less than their
maximum Health...
• While they have 2 Health
remaining, they suffer a
disadvantage on all challenges.
• While they have 1 Health
remaining, they suffer two
disadvantages on all challenges.
Hard Harris has 4 Constitution, meaning
they start with 4 Health. They get hit
through the chest with a spear, losing a
Health. They have 3 health. As 3 Health
is more than 2 Health, they have no
disadvantages from pain. Everything is
fine! They get hit through the chest with
a spear again. They now have 2 Health,
so suffer a disadvantage. They're hit
through the chest again, going to 1
Health. Now they suffer two
disadvantages. Hard Harris probably
should do something about being hit
through the chest with a spear.
To stress the implications of the above,
characters with a low Constitution may
skip one or both stages of the above
effects.
Weedy Waldorf has 2 Constitution, so 2
Health. 2 Health is his maximum, so he
does not suffer a disadvantage for
being at 2 Health. They are hit, losing a
Health. As they have 1 Health, they
suffer two disadvantages. Weedy
Waldord never suffers one
disadvantage for being in pain.
INJURIES
Actual Injuries are primarily a narrative-
based part of the game, based on the
fiction rather than the process of losing
Health.
For example, as part of the narrative, a
player has a hand cut off. They may lose
Health, but they will also now be unable
to do anything which required that hand.
It is possible that losing a Health in
combat will also be accompanied by an
injury if the narrative demands it.
For example, putting your hand beneath
an executioner’s blade and letting them
hit you is a pretty good justification for
losing the Health from the attack AND
your hand.
It’s worth noting that recovering Health
does not necessarily mean that the
effects of your injury are removed. It
depends on the narrative reason of the
healing. For example, setting a broken
arm by medical means would recover
the Health, but keep the injury
disadvantage. A Godbinder’s miracle to
heal them? Well, depends on the god,
right? Always ask what is sensible in
the narrative.
INCAPACITATION AND DEATH
This is a simple but also brutally deadly
system. It’s been designed to support
the one-off scenario this Beta is
designed for. If you’re looking at a game
longer than that, this is likely something
you may wish to tweak. The Arcana has
an alternate, more complicated (and
forgiving) system.
It is likely that if you have GMed more
forgiving modern games, you will be
twitchy about this. There’s more in the
actual scenario about how death
impacts the game. These are just the
pure mechanics. Trust me.
Anyway…
If a character ever reaches zero Health,
they fall unconscious and will die
shortly after the end of the combat
unless they are healed by another
character taking an action.
If a character would ever have negative
Health, they die instantly. The more
negative Health a player would have,
the messier the player’s death will likely
be.
Ouch.
It's worth stressing that the general
principle of “If something is reasonable,
it should just happen” remains. For
example, if a character is unchivalrous
enough to slit someone's throat, you will
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.
RECOVERING GUARD DURING COMBAT
As Guard represents how well a
character is defending themselves, it's
possible for a character to take a
moment to recover their footing,
concentrating on getting their balance
back and ensuring they're not about to
be hit by a huge troll's hammer or
similar.
To recover Guard, roll a Dexterity dice
pool. The standard challenge difficulty
would be 1, but it's possible that a GM
may set it higher in situations where it's
hard to recover your defences. If you
match the challenge difficulty, and for
each success above it, the character
regains one Guard, up to their maximum.
Nimble Steve had 1 Guard left. He elects
to recover his Guard. As there's nothing
unusual about the combat, the GM
keeps the difficulty at 1. As he has 4
Dexterity, he rolls four dice. He rolls
incredibly well 6, 4, 4 and 5. He has four
successes. He matches the difficulty
level and with three excess dice. He
would be able to increase his Guard by
4, but as his maximum Guard is 4, the
fourth success is lost. He now has four
Guard.
It's suggested that a character (like in
most other actions) would be able to
move about as much as they would
when attacking as when recovering
Guard. Frankly, backing away while
trying to avoid being hurt any more is
what you probably should do if you're in
a fight and want to recover your guard.
DAMAGE OUTSIDE COMBAT
The above rules are used to manage
damage in all situations in the game,
whether in combat or not. The number of
successes is certainly a useful guideline
for the amount of damage a player could
receive from a hazardous situation.
Normally Guard should not be used
outside of a combat situation, but it is
possible the GM see rare exceptions. It
should be noted that things which may
seem to be an exception at first glance
are actually not.
For example, Nimble Steve is walking
down a corridor, alert for traps. He sets
one off, and a spear hurtles at him. The
GM makes him roll a Dexterity-based
challenge with difficulty 4 to get out the
way. Steve rolls three successes, and
the GM says that as he failed by 1, Steve
loses on Health. Steve, clearly being
fond of Health, suggests that as he was
alert for danger, he should have
generated Guard and lost that instead.
The GM notes that his diving out of the
way had already been simulated when
he rolled his Dexterity dice pool. Nimble
Steve agrees, and then begs for
forgiveness for being an over-anal rules
lawyer. The GM comforts Nimble Steve,
but tells him not to lay it on too thick.
It should be noted that this could be true
in combat as well, with hits
circumventing Guard. This would be a
judgement call of the GM, or based upon
the nature of the Special powers.
Dragon’s Breath that fills an empty room
entirely is not something that may be
sensibly parried. It’s rare, but worth
mentioning.
In most cases, heroes diving behind
pillars or crouching behind their shields
as dragonfire assaults them is what
we’re all about, daddio.
COMBAT ADVANTAGES AND
DISADVANTAGES
We could add a list of situations which
add advantages or disadvantages, but it
comes down to “Does something that
isn't already included in the challenge
rating or dice pool make a result less
likely? Add a disadvantage. If something
makes it easier? Add an advantage.”
For example, for ranged combat: if
you're at a close range? That seems
normal. No changes. A bit further away
at medium range? A disadvantage. A
long way? Two disadvantages.
Someone's concealed by a bush? A
disadvantage. A brick wall? Probably
two disadvantages. Someone is in the
middle of a frenetic melee? A
disadvantage – and expect to hit
someone you weren't aiming at if you
roll a critical failure.
You may wish to include such thinking
on close combat. If you're in a narrow
corridor, it's not as easy to swing a
battleaxe. A disadvantage would make
sense. Conversely, if you’re armed with
a spear, you would suffer no problem –
in fact, anyone attacking you who didn’t
also have a long weapon may suffer a
disadvantage.
It’s worth noting, the more a Master
uses these kinds of options, the more
the game will focus around tactical
manoeuvring as you are rewarding this
kind of behaviour. This may not be the
behaviour you wish to encourage.
WEAPONS (AND OTHER FORMS OF
HURTAGE)
You may note that only character
abilities influence the amount of
damage in the above set of rules. This is
because weapons often have their own
special rules, altering the amount of
damage they give in certain situations,
adding specific advantages or
disadvantages or even giving access to
special abilities.
A selection of weapons can be found in
the character sheets. It should be noted
the GM shouldn't feel pressured to use
these weapon abilities on GM
characters – the players are especially
trained heroes with fancy weapons.
Sticking to the basic combat rules for all
characters will gain advantage of
speed, and you can still use advantages
or disadvantages on them, as the
narrative demands. Equally, monsters’
special abilities essentially act like
weapon abilities.
For example, the players are attacking a
mob of orcs armed with spears, at the
end of the corridor. The GM isn't using
any rules for monster weapons, but
spears are longer than any of the
players’ weapons. It'll be easier for them
to hit the players and harder for the
players to hit them... at least until they
can get past the spearheads. The GM
decides the players receives a
disadvantage on their attacks.
One player is dumb enough to try this
with a dagger. You may be tempted to
throw even more disadvantages at their
attacks. However, the player is a Neo
with a personal short-range teleporter?
Ah! The Neo blips close enough to
attack. Hell, the spear-wielder is more
likely to get a couple of disadvantages
on their attack, now they have a neo in
their face. The spear-wielder is facing
the other way and the players creep up
behind them? Also no problem.
In short, advantages and
disadvantages are applied according to
a reading of the tactical and narrative
situation.
The same process applies to other
things used for hurting, such as magical
spells. A jet of flame sets someone on
fire? A couple of disadvantages on all
rolls until the fire's extinguished sounds
about right.
It's worth noting that this process is
exactly how the effects of the weapons
for the heroes were generated by your
friend, the game designer.
GENERATING RULES
You will have noticed that the last two
sections amount to “make up something
reasonable then keep it consistent”.
DIE's core mechanic is designed to be
simple and flexible enough to operate
like this.
Many modern games take this approach
to the narrative side of a scenario.
Rather than planning everything in
detail, a GM may have some basic
characters available and a concept and
then make everything else up, making a
note to remind yourself of it. We do a lot
of this too.
However, DIE also uses this with the
rules. Making a ruling for the situation
occurs first, and then sticking to it from
then on avoids the need to memorise
rules that you don't want to. Your game
can be as simple or complicated as you
wish. Equally, rules described above
aren't actually in the game until they
appear in play. You should feel free to
hack anything as you run the game.
When a rule you've introduced proves
sub-optimum you have various options.
1) Just roll with it and extrapolate what
happens in a world where something
deeply counterintuitive is in play. If
your rules have made daggers the
best weapon, imagine how that
would change society.
2) Change the rule via a Master or
Grandmaster. See the section later –
this means that someone in the
world has literally changed it. This
can very much be the start of a
quest.
As this playtest set of DIE rules is mainly
for one scenario, we'd say ignoring it is
also an entirely viable option. If you run
multiple one-off DIE games there's no
need to keep the rules identical in each.
Each is its own world, and the Masters
do keep on meddling.
GM CHARACTER PROFILES
MONSTERS, MATES AND EVERYTHING IN
BETWEEN
The process of creating monsters
specifically for DIE was described in the
Preparing the Second Session section
earlier. Below is the pure stats stuff. To
repeat the key thing from earlier…
1) Choose a basic profile. Consider
tweaking it.
2) Consider some Special abilities.
3) Consider other abilities.
That’s it.
1) BASIC PROFILES
Choose one of these as your core, or
tweak appropriately. Note how few
stats you need to have a workable DIE
character.
To stress – any stat not listed here is 2.
CANNON FODDER MONSTER
Stats: Dexterity 0
Defence: 1
This is useful for the mobs of creatures.
With a Dexterity of 0, it means it will
have a Guard of zero. This means it can
only lose Health. With a defence of 1, it
means two successes will take every
individual down. Players will be able to
mow through these, and they are likely
only able to threaten the players if you
use a lot of them together.
Use as a basis for folks like: orcs,
goblins, those friendly villagers who
want to help but really aren’t up to the
challenge.
NORMAL
Stats: All 2
Defence: 1
Anyone you meet who is anything at all
like a normal human being at the base,
should have this profile. You’ll note it
means that all their stats are 2. That
means they’ll have 2 Health and 2
Guard.
Use as a basis for folks like: the village
guards, better classes of orcs, the noble
dwarfs who are trying to help, some
types of Fallen.
ELITE MONSTER
Stats: Strength 3
Defence: 1
As all other stats are 2, these will have 2
Health and 2 Guard, making them twice
as resilient as the Cannon Fodder
Monster. It’s far less likely they’ll be killed
with a single blow. They could also
recover their Guard.
Use as a basis for folks like: the Elite
Guards of the bad guy/noble leader,
knights, most actual adventurers.
HERO FIGHTER
Stats: Strength 4, Constitution 3,
Dexterity 3
Defence: 2
These are pretty handy. Guard 3, Health
3 and a strong defence. These are
basically on par with a party member.
Switch Dexterity and Strength for the
more light-armour style heroes.
Use as a basis for folks like: Conan,
Aragorn, Nazgul, Red Sonja, anyone you
would put on the cover of your fantasy
novel in skimpy clothing.
MONSTER
Stats: Strength 4, Constitution 4
Defence: 2
One of these is basically a good fight for
a player or even two. They have 4
Health and 2 Guard, but also require 2
successes to hit at all. With a normal
Wisdom of 4 these are still very
vulnerable to emotional control.
Use as a basis for folks like: that huge
troll, that guy who’s a head taller than all
his soldiers and is wearing the armour
covered in spikes, the Mountain.
HERO WIZARD
Stats: Constitution 3, Wisdom 4,
Intelligence 4
Defence: 2
Defence 2 likely simulates magical
defences of the wizard in some way.
This gives some strong dice pools to
use. If you want to have a less top-class
wizard or cleric, reduce Wisdom and
Intelligence to 3.
Use as a basis for folks like: Gandalf,
Saruman, the Wicked Witch of the West,
Dumbledore, Voldemort, Alan Moore.
EPIC MONSTER
Stats: Strength 6, Constitution 5,
Wisdom 3, Intelligence 3
Defence: 3
A big ol’ monster with a big ol’ brain. This
creature will have 5 Health, plus a Guard
of 2. It requires 7 hits to kill, and 3
successes to even land a hit. Note the
high Wisdom means that it’s very
difficult to affect with emotional control.
If you want it to be, reduce Wisdom and
Intelligence to 2 or even lower.
Use as a basis for folks like: Smaug,
balrogs, anything you really didn’t think
the players would be foolish enough to
actually fight.
2) SPECIAL ABILITIES
Choose one (or more) to personalise the
monster into something a little
mechanically different.
It’s worth noting what each special
ability operates is not defined – for
example “Close Combat Specialist” may
be because the monster is trained
especially in martial arts – or it could be
because its hands are awesome
stabbing weapons, or anything else you
can imagine.
To repeat a core DIE concept – all
elements from the fiction should impact
the fiction where appropriate. This
includes how you choose to define your
special abilities. For example, being a
Close Combat Specialist because the
monster is a trained fighter will not stop
someone opening a door. Being a Close
Combat Specialist because you have
weapons for hands will, because you no
longer have the hands to operate
doorknobs.
Anyway – a short list of options. Define
<certain> and <set time> for yourself.
(Only one option currently includes
these, but more will doubtless follow.) If
not assume they are “all” and “until the
end of the combat”:
Close Combat Specialist: Advantage on
melee attack rolls.
Ranged Specialist: Advantage on
ranged attack rolls.
Berserker: Advantage on melee attack
rolls, the character has no Guard.
Flaming attacks: Adds to the
character’s attacks a Special: if this hit
causes a Wound the target is ignited.
They suffer one further Wound every
round until dead or the fire is
extinguished. When ignited a character
suffers a Disadvantage on doing almost
everything.
Freezing Attacks: Adds to the
character’s attacks a Special: target is
chilled, and now suffers a disadvantage
to all actions until their next round. If
already chilled and is chilled again the
target is now frozen. When Frozen a
character is immobilised until either
unfrozen or can succeed in a Strength
test against a difficulty of the number of
times they’ve been frozen.
Paralyzing attacks: Adds to the
character’s attack a Special: if the hit
wounds, the target misses their next
action.
Death Attack: When the character dies,
they get to do a final attack at whoever
killed them.
Cleaving Destructive Claws: Add to the
attack a Special: if this hit causes a
Wound, it causes two Wounds.
No Emotions: Invulnerable to all forms
of emotion manipulation or draining,
ether positively or negatively.
Iron Will: Willpower for this monster is
one higher than usual.
Homing: Adds Special: advantage on
<certain> attacks until <set time> to all
ranged tactics.
Secret Stealer: Adds Special: the
character must say aloud a secret not
known to the majority of the characters
present.
Vampiric: Adds Special: if a melee hit
removes a Health, gain a Health to your
maximum.
This is a very short list. You should feel
free to use any Special on a character
sheet as an inspiration, or make your
own. In a real way if you think of
something neat that happens when
they roll a six in a dice pool? Great,
you’ve made a special. Well done, you’re
now a game designer. Game designer-
high-five!
3) OTHER ABILITIES
Should the character be able to do it?
They can do it.
If you want to give a wizard specific
magical spells, choose miracles from
the Godbinder’s sheet or use the
Arcana’s Spells and Magical Generation
System. But there’s a lot you can just
make up as you go along…
DIE's system is flexible enough for
almost all abilities to work on the fly,
giving advantages and disadvantages
depending on context – for example, if
the creature is very small, you may
choose a disadvantage for a full-size
player hitting it with their large weapon.
Worth stressing: as in all the
improvisation, once you have mentioned
a rule, it continues throughout the game.
All small things (or at least, small things
of this type) should be a disadvantage
to hit from that point on. Making the
world seem coherent, even if we're
making it up as we go along, is very
much the point. More on this in the rules,
perhaps obviously.
Other major abilities of powerful
creatures are chosen according to
narrative appropriateness. A dragon can
likely breathe fire. A wizard can likely
cast spells. A merchant likely can sell
you stuff you want. In combat,
depending on how powerful they are,
choose how often they can do
something extreme. For example an
ability they can use every round or
every second round or every third round
or just once a combat. Alternatively,
instead of being predictable, you may
want it to be random. For example, a
dragon has a 1 in 3 chance of breathing
fire every round.
The golden rule: if it makes sense that
this is something this monster should be
able to do, they should be able to do it. If
not, they shouldn’t. Dragons may have a
high Dexterity, but their hands are too
large to pick pockets. Use your noggin’.
EXAMPLE MONSTERS
NON-SENTIENT GOLEM MONSTER
Stats: Strength 4, Constitution 4
Defence: 2
Specials: No Emotions
This would be good in a fight, and
invulnerable to mind control. This is
useful to think about, as a creature with
low Wisdom is particularly weak to
emotional attacks – which is a Dictator’s
ability. Having no emotions means the
Dictator can’t just take it out. Iron Will
can be used to make it harder, but not
impossible, for a dictator.
BASIC FALLEN
Stats: Dexterity 0
Defence: 1
Specials: Close Combat Specialist
(brutal claws)
This would have a dice pool of 3 when
attacking, but also go down with only 2
hits, due to having no Guard. In other
words, useful cannon-fodder who can
still have a chance of hurting players.
GIANT FALLEN
Stats: Strength 4, Constitution 4
Dexterity 0
Defence: 2
Specials: Close Combat Specialist
(brutal claws)
The above, on steroids. This would have
a 5-dice pool for attacking, and 4 hits to
go down – but with defence of 2 making
hits much rarer.
WIZARD FALLEN
Stats: Constitution 2, Wisdom 2,
Intelligence 4
Defence: 2
Specials: Flaming attacks, Raise Other
Fallen to Life (Difficulty 1).
An example of a support character. Sits
at the back-firing magic spells (using its
Intelligence of 4 for its dice pools). If a
Fallen dies, it tries to raise it from the
dead.
The core rules of each of the archetypes
are included on their sheets in the
handout. All require some special
assistance from you, and all have
advice on how to make their experience
feel unique.
You should read the sheets before
reading any of this. You likely will want
to have the sheets printed to read
alongside this for reference.
But to understand the intent here, most
games try (to some degree) to have
special abilities varying between
classes, but they're mainly built on an
underlying structure. There's some of
this in DIE, because it's an efficient way
to teach a game... but each class also
has something that is radically its own.
In the same way they each have their
own special dice, they have their own
mechanic, which is individual. The other
players are unlikely to ever understand
what the other players are up to
entirely, and this is entirely as planned.
The aim is to make each players'
abilities feel somewhat mysterious to
one another... and also make each
individual feel precious and special. This
is mine, and mine alone.
In short: it's really about adding magic to
the mechanics.
But each is going to put different
demands on you as a GM, hence this
chapter.
The following is a lot of useful stuff, but
you will mostly be able to play the game
just by reading the character sheets.
I’ll be honest with you here: the variety
of the players’ characters abilities and
your involvement with them is the thing
which is the largest cognitive load on
the GM. This is one of the main reasons I
recommend starting by playing with a
smaller group. The core of What You Do
is also included on the GM Cheat Sheet
for the classes, which is our attempt to
help out.
You are strong! You are mighty! You’ll be
fine.
DISTRIBUTING THE ARCHETYPES
It’s worth noting the game is based
upon the GM distributing the classes. If
there’s a class you don’t want to run
(for any reason), you don’t have to give
it to someone. And, as said earlier, you
can always check in.
The classes that follow are in a rough
level of complexity. Each section also
includes further thoughts on who to
distribute each class to.
It ends with the Fallen, which is the
additional class that may or may not
turn up in the game.
FULL VERSUS LIGHT ARCHETYPES
There are two sets of archetype sheets
available. The Full includes all the rules
and choices for each of the classes.
While this edition of DIE isn’t as
complicated as many games, it will
often generate characters who have
more abilities than will be used in a two-
session game. This is not necessarily a
problem. However, it certainly does take
some more time.
If you’re playing in a less experienced
group or have less time available (so
you don’t want to spend so much time
generating characters) you may wish to
use the Light characters. Here you use
the first sheet of the full archetype, but
replace the second sheet with the Light
version. This strims away many of the
secondary abilities of each class, and
reduces the number of choices. You are
left with a purer take on each character,
which fulfils the core fantasy the game
offers.
The Light characters are a little weaker
than the Full versions in terms of power.
As such, it’s not advised to mix Light
and Full versions.
RUNNING THE FOOL
WHO TO GIVE THE FOOL TO?
While the core Fool is a playful fighter, it
can be customised to any of the three
core types of fantasy characters –
fighters, thieves and wizards. As such,
no matter what sort of things a player
would like to get up to, they can do them
as a Fool.
It’s arguably the easiest class to run,
with the least to worry about for a
player. Most of their abilities are passive
(so working with no active need for the
player to do anything) or simple (the
Fool’s lucky dice is powerful, but also
works in an easily understandable way).
If there’s a player who is less
comfortable with being here, this is a
strong choice.
It’s not just a class for beginners.
There’s a lot of impish fun to be had with
the Fool. They are literal troublemakers.
An experienced player can get a lot from
the Fool, and play them basically as
whatever class they wish.
There is one more note – make sure to
give it someone who gets the joke and is
in on it.
THE FOOL’S DICE
They can add their D6 to literally any roll
where they are acting in a foolish or
daring fashion. You get to decide what
that actually looks like, though you
should be careful to be consistent in
your rulings.
It's worth noting that the higher the
threshold for getting that extra dice, the
more the player will be an irritant to the
rest of the group (unless their attitude is
similarly devil-may-care). If the player is
forced into behaviour that is nearly
suicidal to get the bonus, they'll either
not do it, or it will frustrate the other
players to the point they'll draw
weapons on them. This can be dramatic,
of course, but something which should
be built towards.
I’d suggest that, rather than the above,
you remove the dice any time the player
shows overt concern and care rather
than adding the dice if they're
particularly careless. Entering battle
with a grin is enough to get the dice. It's
only holding back and carefully planning
a methodical ambush which loses it.
It should also be noted that, when the
Fool’s dice is in a dice pool, the dice’s
Special means that sixes can be used
to generate more dice. In raw
mechanics, the Fool’s Dice is actually
one of the most powerful in the whole
game.
The If All Else Fails… is the Fool’s most
powerful ability. It exists to get the party
(or at least the Fool) to luck their way
out of trouble. It’s worth noting the
ability does not allow the Fool to dictate
how they get out, or the situation it gets
them in. Dropping them into a perilous
(but less perilous) situation is certainly
reasonable, though certainly should be
less instantly deadly than the place
they were in. It’s not an ability which
tends to kill the opposition, unless it’s
particularly amusing.
What happens next is key. As well as
the Fool no longer being able to use their
luck abilities, the GM having the Fool’s
dice is a constant threat. The players
should always be aware that you have
the dice. You should play with it, holding
it, making them aware you have this
token that could just ruin whatever it is
they’re doing.
As a general rule, the level of disaster
you drop on someone should be akin to
the level of disaster that passing you
the D6 avoided. Equally, the way you
use the dice should be worse for the
players than any plan which the Fool
deliberately sabotages. You likely want
to encourage the Fool to act in a foolish
way. If the Fool does not respond to
your quiet teasing of peril, hitting them
with something particularly awful and
passing them back the dice will
certainly encourage the Fool to try and
reclaim the dice in a less awful way next
time. It will also encourage the other
players to be more accepting of the Fool
occasionally blowing things up – they’ve
seen the alternative.
As such, I would suggest being
generous to the Fool when they
sabotage a plan to get their dice back.
The level of peril a Fool puts the party in
to reclaim the dice does not have to be
of the same level of the peril you used to
get out of it. For example, if while talking
to a GM character, a Fool says
something that is clearly offensive and
blows the attempt to charm them is
absolutely the sort of behaviour that
could get the D6 back in the Fool’s hand.
Ideally, the Fool deliberately messing
something up should get a laugh. It’s the
character shouting “Hey! I think the
Guards didn’t see us” beat and not a
“Hey – I’ve just stabbed my friend in the
back with my sword” beat.
There is one exceptional situation to
warn you of. If a player gets their dice
back and immediately uses it to get out
of the situation they’ve got themselves
into, they’re being an over-sensible
rules-lawyer. Whatever the Fool is, it’s
the opposite of that. This is called
Pushing Your Luck. Immediately feel
free to use the D6 to put them into an
even worse situation, and tell them that
they’re Pushing Their Luck. If they use
the D6 to avoid the problem again, even
after this warning, let them escape it,
and then use the D6 to hit them with
something that kills them instantly. They
were warned. This can even be an Anvil
from the heavens, if you’re feeling like
going full Wile-E Coyote.
Eventually a gambler pushes it too far,
and their karmic debts will catch up with
them. In practice, most players realise
that this is a bad idea before it happens.
If someone asks, “What’s to stop me
just using my D6 to get out of trouble?”
feel free to just smile and say, “Want to
try and find out?”
TRICKSTER WIZARD
While the other two styles are simple,
the Trickster Wizard option lets the
player select minor magical spells. The
Godbinder sheets includes a big list of
pre-generated magic spells. The Arcana
includes more, and rules for calculating
them. Let them cast anything which is
difficulty one that seems reasonable.
You don’t need to tell them what they
can do – they ask to do something, and
you tell them.
A player can use Charisma or
Intelligence as their dice pool to cast a
spell, according to their preference. A
Fool using Wisdom seems heretical,
right?
THE BUZZFEED QUIZ
You may notice the Fool’s sheets
include a lot more things which have
absolutely no use. This is because the
Fool, more than any class, has less
choices to make. As such, they may be
left twiddling their fingers while the
other players make their choices. As
such, their sheet has a bunch of fun
busy-work for them to play with.
This is thematic: everyone else does
homework. The Fool fucks around.
Of course, it should be remembered – as
all things the players generate, be
aware of what is on the sheet. It likely
will tell you something about the
character, and likely can be worked into
an encounter.
SAD CLOWNS
While many Fools will gleefully blunder
their way through the adventure, there
is another more serious route. Fools can
find themselves starting to imprint upon
the world and start to take themselves
and their friends more seriously. This is
a great character arc. It also means
they lose the vast majority of their
abilities.
Some players actually love this,
especially in the one-off format. If a
character goes the serious route, they
likely are aware of this.
However, it should be noted that this
isn’t the necessary end of the route. The
Fool gains their dice not if they are light-
hearted. They gain their dice if they act
light-hearted. A GM character can
certainly point this out. An enlightened
Fool is put in the position where to save
their friends they have to bite back the
tears, paint on a smile and dive into the
fray. It doesn’t matter if they cry
between encounters.
In short: “But Doctor,” said the Fool, “I
am Pagliacci."
RUNNING THE EMOTION KNIGHT
WHO TO GIVE THE EMOTION KNIGHT TO?
The emotion is the closest DIE has to a
straight Fighter class. It’s a role which is
primarily defined inside combat – or at
least the threat of starting combat. It
can be one of the easiest classes to
play – you experience an emotion and
then use that emotion to defeat your
enemies. As such, if the Fool is taken,
it’s a good choice to give to the least
experienced player. If you guide them
towards an emotion like Rage or Terror
that is likely any persona would feel
when exploring a bleak fantasy world
then you can have a simple, yet
powerful, experience. It’s worth noting
that you may consider filling in the
emotion on the sheet before handing
over, if you want to especially guide
them.
However, it’s not just that. While a Rage
Knight will have an experience akin to a
classical Barbarian or Berserker,
choosing a less immediately obvious
emotion will change their behaviour
considerably. What’s does a Loathing
Knight do, for example? Equally, for a
role-player whose persona is clearly
driven by their relationship to a single
emotion, giving them the Emotion Knight
means they are going to explore their
relationship to that feeling in depth.
THE D8
Other archetypes get to add their dice
more often to their dice pools. The
Emotion Knight only gets to add the D8
to their dice pool when activating their
most powerful ability, otherwise using it
as a simple counter, sliding up and
down the scale. This means that the
process of actively picking up the D8 is
loaded for the Emotion Knight, akin to an
elite Samurai finally drawing the sword.
Of all the dice in the game, it’s the one
which can be treated with most fear and
respect. If you act like it’s a big deal the
player has picked it up, it will signal to
everyone else that Shit Has Just Got
Real.
It also isn’t a normal attack.
CREATIVE VIOLENCE
While the Emotion Knight is a combat-
leaning character, when a player uses
the D8 is equivalent to the other
characters’ most powerful abilities – the
Neo’s overcharge, the Godbinder’s
major miracles, the Fool’s luck and so
on. It is about solving intractable
narrative-level problems.
If you look at the adjectives on the
sheet, you will see the scale we’re
talking about. A GM should consider
scaling encounters for grandeur to give
players a chance to use the higher
levels of their ability. The terms in the
table are deliberately open to
interpretation.
For example, Roland Rage Knight and
friends step out into the light to find the
assembled forces of the Dark Lord
facing them, stretching towards the
horizon. Glenda Godbinder is about to
talk to a God to let them escape, but
Roland stops them. This is an Army,
right? The GM nods. He’s level 3 Rage.
He can handle an army…
The interpretative aspects are key. The
Emotion Knight’s violence can be
mystical and even godly. Cut pathways
through doors, or – to bastardize
Hendrix – cut down a mountain with the
side of the blade. Clean the Augean
stables of shit in a blizzard of blows. It’s
worth stressing it says “defeat” not
“kill” on the sheet. This is an Emotion
Knight’s passion solving a single
problem.
To stress, this ability is almost useless
for fighting a standard combat or
individual. The adjectives are
deliberately higher than that. The ability
to defeat an army is great, but if you’re
not facing an army, it doesn’t apply.
For example, Roland has defeated the
army, with its leaders there, bewildered.
The party steps forward to fight them,
starting a normal combat. Even if Roland
still had rage level 3, he couldn’t use it in
the same way- they are not an army, or
any of the other adjectives.
For simple combat, the Knight has
plenty of normal abilities to use their
rage for. Picking up the D8 is for
something truly heroic…
However, dramatically speaking, a
Knight could turn something from an
impossible situation to something which
works like a normal combat…
An angry Roland is approached by a
tribe of almost as equally angry trolls, all
baying for his blood. “Hmm? Is this a
mob?” asks Roland. The GM says it is.
Roland reaches for his sword… and a
minute later, only three trolls are still
there, the rest either dead or run. Three
trolls aren’t a mob, and this is the
combat.
To state the obvious, many of the
adjectives are much more
impressionistic. Defeat a religion? A
god? A belief? That could be just hitting
something, but it could be something
much more philosophical. Note again the
phrasing of the word “defeat” not “kill”.
Get creative with the violence and
reward lateral thinking. This is where an
Emotion Knight can get poetic, if they
want.
A KNIGHT CHOOSING WHICH SPECIFIC
EMOTION’S NAME
The player is free to choose which of the
levels of emotions they wish to name
the Knight. This is to let them express
themselves, and signal what about that
emotion is core to them. Every knight
draws from the full range on that prong
of the emotion wheel. So whether a
player says they’re a Rage Knight or an
Annoyance Knight, they draw from
Anger, Rage and Annoyance.
If in doubt, guide them towards the word
on the part of the spoke which they
think is coolest.
THE WEAPON’S VOICE
Half the archetypes get their own NPCs.
The Neo gets their clinical AI. The
Godbinder gets a head full of gods,
whispering ideas. The Emotion Knight
gets their sentient arcane weapon… and
it’s arguably the most subversive and
least trustworthy of them all. At least
the Godbinder knows the gods are trying
to barter and manipulate them.
While the player gets to define the style
of the weapon’s personality, they do not
get to define what the weapon wants.
What it wants is to actively push the
character towards indulging in its
emotion.
For example, in these rules, we suggest
running Rage Knights if you’re
uncertain. Anger is easy to understand –
primarily, a Rage Weapon wants to be
right in the heart of anger, which is
primarily bloodshed. The sword is
primarily very excited to kill people. How
it expresses it is the thing the player
defines – a murderous serial killer sword
is one thing, a kooky cutsie sword is
another. Either way, the weapon would
be looking for ways to experience rage.
The player will notice that the weapon
can sense the emotion which powers it.
In the case of a Rage Knight, the
weapon will be able to sense nearby
angry enemies. The question is what
does the sword tell the persona? If the
persona is trying to avoid combat, it’s
contrary to the weapon’s desires. If a
Rage weapon wants to be in a fight, and
the player is trying to avoid it, the
weapon will clearly lie and send their
master straight into the ambush. It's not
dumb.
The push and pull between the sword as
a friend and ally or an awful enabler is
definitely a key part of the class.
Depending on the emotion picked, this
nature will vary. It’s worth taking a few
seconds to think what exactly an
Arcane Weapon powered by (for
example) Anticipation wants… and then
stick to that characterisation and
desire.
POWER-UPS
Generally speaking, the weapons are
going to grow more impressive as the
Knight gains more emotion. You can use
various visual effects, but a warning –
growing weapons can seem cool, but
risk reading as phallic. You'll likely be
better off with energy fields or similar.
TRACKING THE KNIGHT’S EMOTIONAL
STATE
You’ll see the Emotional Scale on the
additional emotional sheet. This should
have the Knight’s major, average and
minor emotions written on it, and
passed to the player. DIE is based on
Robert Plutchik's emotion wheel, which
posits eight primary emotions, set in
two antagonist poles. It's contemporary
theory with 1991 (when DIE rules are
meant to have been written) and works
really well for an RPG setting.
Generally speaking, levels 1 to 3 – the
ones which we’ve labelled – are the
normal levels of human emotions. Level
3 terror is about the level of terror you
would feel if being hunted by someone
with a knife around your house. Level 4
and 5 are a level of intensity which is
beyond regular human experience. Most
people will faint or run in an
uncontrolled panic at level 4 terror.
Level 5 will likely cause a heart attack.
Above level 6 are an intensity beyond all
human experience. The Dictator has
more on this section, but even a level 4
experience could render a normal
human being unconscious, or even kill
them.
For every stage of emotion an Emotion
Knight suffers a disadvantage on doing
things which are not relevant to that
emotional state. So, if you are at level 5
rage, you are at FIVE disadvantages on
things which are not things you can do
when angry. If the emotion would help
an Emotion Knight perform a task, they
gain a single advantage, no matter how
many levels.
At level 3 or above, the Master may
suggest behaviour which the persona
wants to do, and if they don’t want to do
it, they have to roll with their Wisdom to
resist. The difficulty should be half the
level of the emotion, rounding up. So, if a
Rage Knight is level 5 rage, the difficulty
to avoid stabbing people will when all
the enemies are gone would be a
difficulty 3 test.
Of course, the player doesn’t have to
resist if they don’t want to. If they go
with the flow, and even start selecting
unwise but appropriate actions
themselves, you may wish to give an
advantage on the roll. It’s what they
really want to do, after all.
GAINING EMOTIONS
None of the above really explain what
should increase a Knight’s emotional
state.
Generally: look at all elements of the
knight’s spoke, plus the adjacent
compound emotion.
For example, for a Terror Knight, you’ll
be looking for the Emotion Knight
showing Terror, Fear or Apprehension
from the Terror spoke – plus an eye on
them showing Submission and Awe. The
compound emotions should be coloured
by their primary emotion. An Amazement
Knight’s feeling of Awe would feel
different than a Terror Knight’s. The
Amazement Knight is a “Oh god – wow!
look at that thing! Isn’t it neat” while
Terror Knight is “Oh god – look at that
thingarggggghhhhhhh!!!!!”
It’s worth noting that the wheel does not
include all the possible combinations. If
you want to go that deep, have a nose
at the Wikipedia page.
As always, read the scale. Levels one to
three are normal – higher, and they are
pushing towards madness and literally
impossible experience. To stress the
above – a level 4 emotion is enough to
make a normal person (Wisdom 4, so
Willpower 4) pass out or worse.
General rule: if a player is not playing or
referencing the emotion, they are not
feeling that emotion. It’s entirely fine to
prompt the player to encourage
expressing how they’re feeling.
For Example…
GM: A Monster appears in front of you.
Player: I draw my sword!
GM: It’s really horrible. Are you feeling
scared?
Player: Yes! It’s a monster! I’ve never
seen anything like it before!
GM: Move your die up to level 2 –
“Fearful.”
Here’s some specifics for how each
spoke could work. If we move past this
Beta, having more emotion-specific
powers in the game is the sort of thing
we’ll want to add, which can expand the
class further. An Interest Knight playing
a Sherlock Holmes-esque role is an
obvious one.
Annoyance/Anger/Rage
Level 1: General unhappiness in a
situation. “Who are these bastards who
are trying to stab me? FUCKERS!”
Level 2: You being attacked and/or hurt.
Level 3: Someone you know and like
being hurt. Possibly you being hurt.
Overview: Some classes in combat are
very easy to get a level 1 emotion. Oddly,
for a class that’s most akin to Viking
Berserkers, that’s not true with the Rage
Knight. However, in any combat,
especially one which extended, it’s
likely there’ll be something which makes
them extremely angry. The longer a
combat goes on, the more that’s likely.
Worth noting – someone who is primarily
excited by combat is, by definition, not
annoyed. If you want to play someone
who really likes combat, you likely are
looking to play a Joy Knight.
Interest/Anticipation/Vigilance
Level 1: Going and nosing at something
with gleeful curiosity. Standing watch,
and actually trying to do the job.
Anything that makes the player go “oh –
cool.”
Level 2: Standing, weapon out, seeing a
horde charging towards you.
Level 3: Arnie being hunted by the
Predator. Discovering something which
changes your understanding of yourself
in a fundamental way. The half second
before a dragon crashes into your
army’s line, with you in the front row.
Overview: With knights of this family,
you need to be especially aware that
“extreme interest” can count as a
higher-level emotion and “minor
vigilance” can be a low-level emotion.
Anticipation is equally broad: “waiting
for Christmas” is different from “Waiting
for Christ’s actual second coming”. You
can’t be too literal. It can also stretch to
“curiosity”. It should be noting that
“anticipation” does not imply something
that is experienced solely positively.
These Knights tend to start a combat at
a high emotional level – “Interesting
enemies coming at me! I am vigilant!” –
which drops, with few ways to recover
energy in a combat. A lot is based on a
player’s actions – they tend to be either
stoic (if interested in being alert) or
quirkily energetic (if interested in
interesting things).
Serenity/Joy/Ecstasy
Level 1: Whatever sparks serenity!
Level 2: Whatever sparks joy!!!!!
Level 3: Whatever sparks ecstasy!!!!!!
Overview: The Ecstasy Knight is a good
example of a class where we realise
emotions are not neutral things – they’re
things provoked by subjects. Clearly, a
Joy Knight is powered by happiness…
But what makes someone happy? A
kinder Joy Knight will use the compound
emotions of Love and Optimism a lot,
based upon their chipper demeanour
and powerful feelings for other
characters or persona. A harsher one is
going to play at best as an emotionally
unavailable joker akin to the Fool and at
worst an active sadist taking joy in the
murder of those who oppose them. It’s
also a character where you may wish to
think about the effect of drugs to induce
emotion states.
In short: The Joy Knight’s easy access
to power entirely comes from to the
individual Knight’s persona.
Acceptance/Trust/Admiration
Level 1: Forgiving behaviour which is not
exactly like your own. Minor, low level
trust – as in, going into battle together.
Level 2: Any time the Knight takes an
action which is deeply reliant on
someone, in a life or death matter.
Level 3: An act of trust which you know
someone is unlikely to actually do, and
huge stakes are on the line. When your
liking for someone changes your
behaviour. When you’re vicariously
proud of someone else’s achievement.
Overview: The dynamic of the
Admiration Knight is definitely unusual.
They’re chill and peppy, and are both
natural followers (as they gain power by
looking up to people) and leaders (they
gain power by putting their faith in other
people). More than most, they’re nice
people. They are also unique in being
able to lose their emotional state easily
– e.g. someone they trust fails their
trust, someone they admire acts
abominably. These should crash the
emotional state hard. In some ways, the
Admiration Knight is about using the
power before someone lets you down.
God, that’s a depressing take, right?
As a Master, be looking for places to
offer them a difficult leap of faith and
people for them to like. However, for a
player more interested in a serious
emotional journey, making the persona
who is incapable of trusting become a
Trust Knight suggests a different
character arc – as in, finally trusting
people and then gaining the physical
power they need. In short – a player who
trusts easily should be tested. A player
who doesn’t trust at all, should be
supported as they build towards that
moment. Look at their choices.
Don’t be too generous with hitting level
3 though. Being impressed by
someone’s stamp collection is not a
level 3 emotion
Apprehension/Fear/Terror
Level 1: ”Oh no – is there a monster?”
Level 2:”It’s a monster!”
Level 3: THE MONSTER IS GOING TO KILL
US ALL!!!?!?”
Overview: In a very real way, the Terror
Knight tends to be about facing their
fears. They also get powerful very
quickly, assuming they are actively
terrified.
There is a problem with this easy source
of power – and it’s the rule that you
suffer disadvantages when trying to
avoid acting on your emotional state. If
your emotional state is fear, that
doesn’t often align to directly attacking
the opposition – as such, you’re likely to
get disadvantages on standard attacks.
It’s also worth noting that creative
violence is not based on the standard
mechanism, so can be used entirely
effectively.
Catharsis is very key here. The Terror
Knight is likely to generate power and
then burn it off as quickly as possible to
avoid just running away. Moments of
panic, then a basal level of dread. It’s
worth noting that sometimes an attack
would not suffer disadvantages – if
cornered, and slashing your way out,
this is acting on your fears…
Distraction/Surprise/Amazement
Level 1: A situation with a lot happening
(for example, a busy melee or a loud
environment, or just the player role-
playing a lot of other things to think
about – like how on Earth are we going
to get home?). Anxiety would certainly
fit in here.
Level 2: Sudden change of situation –
ambushes, being attacked from behind,
etc.
Level 3: OH GOD! LOOK AT THE SIZE OF
THAT DRAGON! I’VE NEVER SEEN
ANYTHING LIKE THAT BEFORE!!!!!
Overview: Amazement Knights tend to
find it easy to get a low level, and get
occasional boosts to level 3 when
something genuinely shocking happens
the first time. They can be one of the
lighter knights to play, but the use of the
word “anxiety” may imply there’s other
ways to take it.
Pensiveness/Sadness/Grief
Level 1: “Ennui” is a good word for this.
When a situation looks hopeless, where
all is lost, where you doubt your abilities.
Level 2: The moment when life expressly
doesn’t go the way you want. Most
forms of loss.
Level 3: Someone dying. If it’s someone
you actually really like, or even love, this
is one of those natural emotions which
may even hit level 4 and 5. Grief is a
motherfucker.
Overview: The Grief Knight is the
Emotion Knight in the DIE comic, which
was picked for literary reasons. The
Grief Knight, like the Terror Knight, is a
creature of catharsis – by using the
abilities, you momentarily purge it. In
terms of power, it’s easy to get to a level
one, especially if a character leans into
the Eeyore-ness of the archetype, but
difficult to get higher. That said, when
things are going badly, the Grief Knight
is at their most powerful. “This is a gift,
and this is the price” as Florence & the
Machine are presently singing,
somewhat randomly.
Boredom/Disgust/Loathing
Level 1: General dissatisfaction with a
situation and/or boredom.
Level 2: Seeing the insides of people
spill out onto your sword.
Level 3: Being locked in a room with
Hitler.
Overview: The Loathing Knight is
unusual in that its level one is a state
that is highly unlikely to happen during
an adventure. DIE’s world is many things
but “boring” is not usually one of them.
Conversely, its other emotions are
relatively easily to hit… go into a
dungeon covered in gunk? That may
trigger disgust for some personas,
though unlikely above a level 1. The first
time you see someone with their guts
sprawling out from a sword attack?
That’s likely to hit a level 2. As a Master,
a player with a Loathing Knight is likely
signalling “I want to see disgusting
things and respond to it.” At the highest
level, Loathing tends to be personal –
either at a person who has wronged you
or acted in a way you cannot bear or
some enormous unjustness.
DRAINING EMOTIONS
Key thing to remember – this is an ability
which uses a standard dice pool. It does
not involve the D8.
If we were a computer game, we would
be keeping a statistic for everyone else
in the game, tracking how much they
were feeling of all eight of the emotions
at every point, so knowing exactly how
many points could abstractly be drained
from everyone else. We’re a pen and
paper RPG, so that sounds like a lot of
work.
Instead, when an Emotion Knight wants
to drain emotions, you should make a
judgement of how much the target
character is feeling. The players’ scale
can likely help – it also should be noted
that 3 is the normal limit of human
feeling. It’s possible that a character is
not feeling it in the slightest, in which
case nothing can be drained.
If an Emotion Knight succeeds in
draining an emotion, the character
should do less of the related behaviour.
For example, draining Rage from an
opponent mid-fight would make them
distinctly less interested in murdering
you. If the character is player-
controlled, you should inform a player
on how the character is feeling now. If
they try to act contrary to their state,
they may get a disadvantage.
It is likely an Emotion Knight may try
unusual uses for this. Can an Interest
Knight drain the curiosity from a guard
allowing you to walk straight past them?
Maybe yes, maybe no. They’re not able
to stop a person gaining the emotion
again after they’ve had an emotion
drained, so perhaps not… but it’s
certainly enough to stop a guard being
interested in something, and gaining
advantages to sneaking past.
Alternatively, you could rule that it is
sufficient – you can drain the emotion of
interest and walk behind him. Generally
speaking, Yes is a more interesting
answer than No.
It should be noted that this is a
Charisma roll. If a player seems
especially interested in this ability,
encourage them to select a higher
Charisma value.
If you look at the emotion wheel, you’ll
see there are complex emotions
involving two different of the main
emotions – for example, Love is between
Joy and Trust. When draining an
emotion, Love can be tapped by Joy and
Trust Knights, leaving the subject out of
love.
The Critical Failure on a draining roll
actually works as a success, draining all
the relevant emotion – however, it
leaves the target broken. They have had
the ability to feel that emotion towards
that subject removed forever. An
adventurer who was afraid of a dragon
will never be afraid of a dragon again. A
guard who was looking out for
mysterious noises will never be
interested in noises ever again. A lover
who was in love with her beloved will
never love him ever again.
Dictators are the characters who tend
to leave emotional messes in their
wakes, but Emotion Knights can do it
too. Can any of the above be reversed?
It will likely require either the reality
warping of a Master, a major miracle of
a Godbinder or some other quest inside
the world. It’s not easy.
It’s worth noting the Light character
does not have this ability on their sheet,
which does not mean you can’t have
them use it as a key moment of the
game. The Arcane Weapon can always
fill them in. Equally, that it is on the Full
character’s sheet does not mean they
have to use it. This is a loaded ability.
It’s also worth noting if you don’t want
to play with this ability, feel free to cross
it out on the character sheet. Your
game, your rules, Master.
CHARACTER GROWTH
If it makes sense in a narrative way,
based upon a persona's character
growth or direction, it's possible that an
Emotion Knight may change emotion.
For example, a Fear Knight may get in
touch with their actual repressed anger
and end the game as a Rage Knight.
This is an element to consider for the
story, and one which is unlikely to come
up. When it does come up, it'll likely be
obvious that it's an appropriate idea.
RUNNING THE NEO
WHO TO GIVE THE NEO TO?
What the Neo specialises is in is like
Angela in the comic – something akin to
a classic D&D Thief, Rogue or Assassin.
They specialise in avoidance and
stealth attacks. They are also one of the
rare classes who can specialise in is
ranged attacks.
Earlier we did say that all the classes
are flexible. It’s true, but only just. If we
develop these rules further, expect
many more tech and cybernetic options
to allow the Neo to move into other
roles. The Cybernetic Terminator Thug is
only just about possible with the current
cybernetic options.
SAFETY-PROOFING THE NEO
To state the obvious, the Neo has a
need baked into the character concept.
In many games, this can come across
as an addiction and the Neo as
necessarily an addict. Certainly other
characters can treat them as such. This
is obviously material which some groups
may wish to avoid, for lots of reasons,
all understandable.
The high-like state can be played down
and the simple mechanical need played
up. This is much more like making rent.
You’re useless without this stuff. The
need can be purely practical. It can be
about obsession, like someone losing
themselves in their hobby, the one thing
they’re good at.
TOKENS FOR FAIR GOLD
While you can just write down notes of
how many gold the Neo has, tokens are
often useful. I personally use chocolate
money, which has the problem of often
not having a heads or tails, but at least
is shiny. Using actual coins also works.
COLLECTING FAIR GOLD
The Neo's abilities are powered by the
gold of the Fair – Fair Gold, for short. In
the world, this appears every day and
disappears in the morning. As such,
anyone who needs it is constantly on
the lookout for it.
The Neo’s basic system – the AI and the
hacking – is always operational. A Neo
requires a single gold to activate each
of their core abilities. They can also use
gold to activate their Overcharge one-
shot special abilities.
As such, you need to ensure there is
Fair Gold available to the Neo player. For
example, when a Fallen is killed, they
can release Fair Gold. As such, giving a
gold in the opening encounter is pretty
necessary – that initial choice of which
of their main systems to boot up is a
thrill of the class. By halfway through
the game, the player should have at
least got the opportunity to have got
enough gold to activate all their abilities,
and likely more.
If Fair Gold is in short supply, it is often a
good motivation to push the Neo into
behaviour you wish to encourage. If Fair
Gold is in great supply, it is a good tool
for the character to use to get past a
challenge – either with their Overdrive
abilities, or a simple bribe to a character
they met. Many denizens of Die may like
the Fair Gold. You don't even need to
explain it. Who wouldn’t want Fair Gold?
As such, it's the closest thing to a
currency in the game – but it's still a
currency that is only really of primary
interest to a single player. Other players
may want to divide the gold they find.
This is fine. The trick is ensuring the Neo
realises they want the gold. Those who
are more mechanically minded will read
the rules and already be hungry for it.
Frankly, the second you put a gold on
the table they may be grasping for it.
Other players will likely require some
guidance. This is a good chance to use
the Question/Answer technique.
For example, upon being confronted by
Fair Gold for the first time.
GM: What's the most your persona ever
wanted anything in your life? Tell me
about it.
Player: <Response>
GM: Looking at this gold feels like that.
It's also true for when someone actively
uses the gold. If you’re leaning that way,
a drug metaphor can be useful. If not, a
euphoria metaphor of your choice (”Like
you’ve been dancing all night in the best
club in the world”, “Like you’ve just hit
the most satisfying plot twist you’ve
ever read”, “Like you’ve just met the
world’s best puppy”) goes a long way.
ACTIVATING THE SYSTEMS
The systems all exist (possibly in a
Neo’s body) when they transform from
their persona to their character. The gun
replaces the weapons in the Neo’s
equipment – while a Neo can’t use its
fancy special abilities instantly, it can
be fired as a weapon. In practice, the
first thing a player tends to do is use
that first gold to turn on their weapons.
When each system activates, the AI
system should make a statement, and
there should be a visual effect. This is
the cyberpunk character. Don’t be afraid
of the cool.
The only system that does not start with
the Neo is the pet. This materialises
when activated.
THE AI
The suit has a built-in AI system, which
is always active, which you should role-
play. In a game with a large number of
players, this is advised to keep minimal
– the AI is a servitor system, and not as
useful for drama as the Godbinder or the
Emotion Knight's Arcane Weapon. In a
smaller game, especially a solo one,
having an AI intelligence for the
characters to talk to can be fun. You can
take a page from 2000AD’s Rogue
Trooper and give each system its own AI
if you really want a lot of things for a
player to talk to.
The AI can provide useful information,
especially about the Neo’s abilities. It
can also use the Fair Field ability to ask
questions about the area, especially
related to Fair-tech. This would include
locating Fair Gold, if you want to give a
desperate player a direction to go to
find gold.
THE D10
The abilities each system gives are
deliberately defined broadly. The D10
should be added to any dice pool which
it's reasonable for that ability to be used
in.
PET
Pets are an adorable and popular ability.
Make sure to read the limitations and
powers of it – damage transfers from
the pet to the persona’s character. The
pet can’t be killed directly. We’re not
monsters. The only time the pet “dies” is
if it powers down on a roll of a 0. If a
player has a Fair Gold on them, the Neo
should have a chance to use it to save
their precious animal. Be nice to
animals, kids.
THE PROBLEM OF DAWN
Fair Gold disappears at dawn, and the
systems deactivate. While most of the
one-off game will happen inside a single
day, it’s possible others may stretch out
to multiple days. In which case, the
character will have to find more gold,
and you (as the GM) should be thinking
of ways to give the opportunity to find it.
Gold can be used just before dawn to
keep a system active for the next day.
It’s a good way to use their surplus gold
at the end of the day.
Yes, the AI knows the time and will warn
the player.
FAIR FIELD HACKING
This is a core ability all Neo possess. It is
primarily used for “hacking” the Fallen,
but a Gamesmaster should look to
provide other abilities for a clever Neo to
use. If a Neo is confronted by any
machinery and asks, “Can I hack it?” the
answer should usually be “Yes” or “You
can try” if you’re being cagey.
In terms of immobilizing a Fallen
opponent, the target difficulty would be
the target Fallen’s Wisdom in
successes. If a Neo wishes to lock down
a group, choose the highest wisdom in
the group. If you succeed, you
immobilize one Fallen. For each success
above that, you immobile an extra one.
For example, Naomi Neo is confronted
by a group of four Fallen (Wisdom 2).
Naomi try to lock down as many as she
can. She rolls four successes. This
means three fallen (2 for the first, 1 extra
success for each other one) are
immobilised.
While Fallen have been used as an
example, this also works on all kinds of
systems. Gun turrets and doors are
popular. For non-sentient creatures
without a Wisdom, a difficulty of half the
intelligence of their makers would be a
good rule of thumb. In other words, set a
difficulty of one unless it’s a very fancy
door.
If a player wishes to actively try to take
over an individual rather than just
immobilising them, you will need to roll a
Special, which will let a Neo be able to
make the target perform a single action.
OVERCHARGE
Most classes have an ability to try and
expend their resources to solve
intractable problems. This is the Neo’s,
and involves the expenditure of their
resources. The ability lists what a one-
coin use should be – minor extensions of
the core abilities. The more unlikely the
effect, the greater the cost. In some
cases you will try to reject it, but you
likely will want to at least humour it.
It is not primarily aimed to be used as a
combat ability, though certain gung-ho
characters may wish to try cramming as
much gold down their barrel to see what
happens. For those who wish to try this,
here’s the basic rule of thumb for
assigning costs:
If a player wants to attack multiple
people at once, it’s one gold per person.
Then roll a dice pool (once, applying the
result to every target individually).
If instead a player wants to target an
individual, one gold per hit is required.
For example, Naomi Neo is facing a
mass of Fallen opponents. She asks if
she can overload her gun to kill them all
in a fully automatic way. There’s 10
Fallen. With ten opponents, the cost is
an astronomical ten gold. Naomi
swallows. No, she doesn’t have nearly
that kind of coin…
Other effects – like trying to blind the
opposition, bring a roof down on
someone’s head or so on are highly
possible. Things which let the players
escape from combat and go another
way are definitely encouraged. The
“automatic kill” is many things, but
boring most of all. Overcharge is meant
for player creativity.
For example, Naomi Neo is still with the
Fallen. Instead, she asks if she can fire
her weapon fully automatic, trying to
suppress the Fallen while the group
escapes. The GM likes this, and sets a
low cost of a single coin to encourage
the behaviour.
If the coin flip is a success, the event
happens. If the coin flip fails you take
narrative control. Simply making it fail is
the sub-ideal choice – the Neo has spent
their resources, and would be looking
for something more than a waste. As
such, look for complications and twists
rather than straight refutations.
For example, presented by a huge
metallic door Naomi Neo puts a gun into
hyperdrive and tries to cut a hole
through. The coin is flipped, coming up
tails. The GM says a hole is cut through
the door… but the alarms all go off.
Guards are coming. Big guards.
SACRIFICE
In DIE the comic, when Angela returns to
earth, she is missing a limb. This is
because she had cybernetics in the
world of Die. You may be wondering if a
player Neo will also be missing limbs
from any cybernetics they choose to
describe.
In short: no.
However, if on the adventure, there
comes a chance to upgrade a Neo with
new equipment, and they choose to give
up a part of their body, that part will be
missing when they return to Earth. This
is basically how all in-world sacrifices
tend to play out, but is worth
highlighting especially to the Neo.
THE ONE CYBERPUNK IN A FANTASY
WORLD
This is a tonal point to think about. The
players are being dropped into a
Fantasy World. Visually, the Neo can
have a different aesthetic. You basically
have three main choices…
1) They are as strange as a magical
cyberpunk would be in a standard
fantasy world. As such, characters
they meet will act as if they’re
genuinely unusual.
2) The magical cybernetics of the Neo
are rare, but a known thing in the
world. Especially if your Fallen has
some elements of techno-magic, it
certainly can fit in.
3) It’s not even commented upon. No-
one comments. Even if asked.
All are great. I’ve used all three in
different games.
RUNNING THE GODBINDER
WHO TO GIVE THE GODBINDER TO?
The Godbinder is arguably the most
flexible and directly powerful of the
classes. In terms of traditional D&D
classes, it is most akin to a cleric, but if
the player’s choices lean more martial,
they can act like a knight. If the choices
lean more academic in style, the
Godbinder can operate in a manner akin
to a warlock or any magic user.
If you’re using the Arcana, a Godbinder
who works solely through minor
miracles and chooses miracles akin to
what a wizard would cast in D&D is
functionally identical to a wizard.
But the Godbinder isn’t primarily for
those who are looking for crunchy
mechanics – it is also one where the
player gets to interact with a series of
god characters and explicitly barter for
what they want. In other words, it’s the
class whose abilities most involve role-
play as a core element. If a player likes
yapping to GM controlled characters,
this is one of the best choices for them.
USING THE D12
The Godbinder is one of the less
complicated archetypes, in its use of
dice. The dice is used simply as a tool
the player brandishes to contact the
god. Some people use it as a phone.
Some people use it as an altar. Just
make the players aware of it, and
encourage them to lean into the ritual of
it.
The D12 is also added to any dice pool
which involves a Godbinder’s miracles,
including attacks (and the players’
physical attacks if transformed or
enhanced by a spell in some way). So if
a player is transformed into a bear, they
would get to roll their D12 in any dice
pool related to bear activities.
THE SECOND GOD SHEET
There’s a second sheet with nine more
pre-generated gods on. This will extend
the Godbinder’s time selecting their
abilities considerably, so do not
necessarily pass it over. It’s likely better
to keep it and then if they ask to play a
different sort of god, let them fill in the
miracles from the sheet.
PLAYING THE GODS
The player gets to define their gods, and
then you play them. The names the
player selects and the domains are your
cue to their personalities, and you can
build on that. The gods are big
personalities, and I would suggest
leaning them iconic. If you're a reader of
the comic DIE, you'll likely have a
selection of gods for inspiration. The
gods, generally speaking, either want
the player to owe them, or they want to
cause things related to What They’re
The God Of to happen in the world. When
role-playing the gods – including setting
deals – bear this in mind.
Time is frozen when speaking to a god,
and no one else can hear them. Describe
that effect to the Godbinder as you wish.
It’s a good idea for a god to pro-actively
speak to the player in the first scene, to
show it’s an option, and introduce the
concept of Major Miracles. A favourable-
deal early Major Miracle is a good idea to
encourage tentative Godbinders to play
with the system. The first hit’s free,
after all.
I give each of my gods their own voice,
though avoid any accent that could be
read as offensive. I lean towards modes
of speaking more than anything else. I
would also think of staging – my
personal trick is when playing a god, to
go and stand behind the Godbinder and
speak into their ear. Clearly, I get
permission for this kind of boundary
pushing. The effect of the Godbinder not
being able to see who they’re
summoning and everyone else being
able to certainly increases the sense of
magic.
With up to three gods for the Godbinder,
it's possible that they take over the
game if the Godbinder likes roleplaying
with them. If there's more players, lean
the gods more taciturn. Of course, this
excess of NPCs around the player
means the Godbinder is a very good
choice for a solo game.
It’s also worth noting that a Godbinder
can call on their gods to just talk to
them. It doesn’t have to be all business.
Gods tend to have strong opinions.
MIRACLES
There are two sorts of miracles. Major
miracles and Minor miracles. Minor
miracles operate like spells in a
traditional game. These are primarily are
those listed on the Godbinder’s sheet
but can also be individually crafted, as
explained below. Conversely, Major
Miracles are bespoke effects, each
bartered with by speaking to a god
character.
MAJOR MIRACLES
In short: Major Miracles are primarily for
interacting with large-scale plot
problems, or when the players are in
deep trouble.
These are essentially bartering with a
god for them dealing with a large
problem, in exchange for a service.
There's no limit to what these can be,
but the bigger the problem, the bigger
what is required for you to do to pay off
the debt (or to complete before the
miracle is even performed). If the
miracle is big enough to side step a
major point of the plot – such as side-
stepping a major problem – the task
required should be as hard as solving
the actual problem yourself.
For example, a Godbinder and party are
presented with a 100ft giant guarding
the door to the lair of the Master. The
players don't fancy their chances, and
contact the God of Ice to ask if they can
freeze the giant for them. Sure, says the
God of Ice. But first you have to defeat a
fire demon who is troubling the region to
the east. The Fire Demon is an enemy
about as difficult to defeat as the giant.
A god can also just say “No, I'm not
interested in a deal”. Especially if the
players have pissed the god off
somehow, or it is something that the
god has no interest or ability in (for
example, asking the Ice God to heal
someone isn’t exactly their thing). You
can also offer deals with are clearly
something no sensible player would
take... but remember, players tend to not
be sensible.
For example, a god which sets their cost
as "You need to kill someone in your
party" is not enough to stop at least
SOME players from doing it. That said,
that also sounds like it could be an
interesting situation. I would advise
against giving an offer that you cannot
stand the players from saying yes to.
Someone will always call your bluff.
If a player breaks a promise based on a
Major Miracle, for any Major Miracle of
any significant size, assume that they
are at least in a five debt in the rules in
Minor Miracles, as described below. In
other words, it’s likely enough to kill a
player outright. In DIE, religion will fuck
you up.
Gods occasionally do Major Miracles
they really want to do, just for the fun of
it, if it's aligned with their nature. This
can be especially useful early in the
adventure to show exactly how big a
miracle can be. Wiping out the initial
wave of Fallen is a good way to show
how big things can be, for example.
MINOR MIRACLES
These are minor abilities, more akin to
the standard spells in a role-playing
game. The player picks them from the
sheet. To create the effect, a Godbinder
must roll a Wisdom roll against the
spells level. As in, the spell’s level is its
difficulty.
When these spells have a target, your
dice pool rolls simultaneously against
the spell’s difficulty and the difficulty of
the target’s defences.
For example, a Gareth Godbinder casting
a fireball (difficulty 2) at a group of Fallen
(defence 1, so difficulty 1). If Gareth rolls
two successes, they cast the spell and
hit the Fallen as the number of
successes matches or is higher than
both the casting difficulty (2) and the
Fallen’s defence (1). If Gareth rolled only
one success, they would fail to cast the
fireball (difficulty 2) so no Fallen are
harmed.
A player is not limited to the Minor
Miracles they’ve picked. While you may
likely use the Major Miracles, any similar
spell which their god could provide
could be attempted. For example, there
is no “create light” spell in the God of
Light. This type of Minor Miracle can be
attempted. For something that minor, a
difficulty of 1 would seem reasonable.
For a guideline of difficulties, see the
spells of the other gods. Remember – the
spell could only be accessible if your
god’s area would cover similar areas.
The God of Fire may let you create a light
minor miracle, but it wouldn’t let you
create a water-bolt miracle.
Note: you should increase the difficulty
by one if the Godbinder does not have
that miracle as one of their selected
ones. So if a Godbinder has selected a
fireball, you cast it at difficulty 2. If a
Godbinder tries and casts a Fireball and
they haven’t selected it, it’s level 3.
There are full Miracle (and spell)
generation systems in the Arcana,
included a bunch of pre-generated
spells. That they’re in the Arcana rather
than here is your tell that you don’t need
them. It’s one of the most maths-centric
bits of the design, and there’s more than
enough on the Godbinder sheets.
Miracles From Gods You Have Not
Selected
It's worth noting that a god you do not
have a relationship with means you
can't do Minor Miracles from their
domain. However, you can do Major
Miracles with them, based on a bespoke
deal. This is likely harder, due to a lack
of any prior relationship, but certainly
there.
God Debt
If you fail to roll the requisite successes,
the spell still happens if you are willing
to accept the debt to the god. For every
step you fail by, the god will take one
debt point. A Godbinder can owe no
more than five debt points to any god.
For example, Gareth Godbinder is trying
to cast a fireball requiring difficulty 2. He
only rolls one success. He decides he
really wants to burn those people, so
give the fire god 1 debt.
A Godbinder can take on debt to add a
success when performing miracles. If
they are able to accumulate debt, they
can force success. Is there a problem?
Calling In God Debt
There is a problem. At any time, the god
may call in any number of these favours.
If the player refuses, they suffer
damage equal to the number of debts
the god chooses to call in.
Gareth Godbinder owes the fire god
three debt. On the way home, he passes
a field of wheat. The fire god wants it to
burn. Gareth is going to refuse, but the
Fire God points out that the Godbinder
only has three health. If they say no,
he’ll be reduced to zero health and keel
over. Swearing at the hard-bargain-
driving-bastard, they reach for their
torch...
The question of what is reasonable is
key. For debt accrued from a Minor
Miracle, a god won’t demand something
akin to Isaac killing a son. It is worth
noting that this may not be true for a
Major Miracle. The bigger the favour, the
bigger the demand.
It is suggested that both GM and player
keep track of the amount of debt owed
to each god.
Leaving Die In Debt To The Gods
Low-level debt, let it slide, especially if
it’s just been forgotten. It’s a good thing
to use to put a few weird notes in the
epilogue. If a player’s response to
escaping is to act in the world like the
god would have wished them to, this
pays off a lot of debt.
If it’s deliberately running off without
paying a big debt, do feel free to create
physical injuries to the persona in the
real world proportionate to their debt. A
literal pound of flesh is perfectly
acceptable in some cases.
“How many minor miracles can you
cast?” and other D&D-y questions
There is no limit on the number of
miracles you can cast in these rules,
though the specific world the players
arrive in may create some problems.
There is an obvious risk in accumulating
debt.
“They’re Cantrips” is a good way to
explain Minor Miracles to a D&D player.
At which point they may go “Wait –
Fireball is my Cantrip?” And then you go
“Uh-huh” and they can go “Whoa.”
RUNNING THE DICTATOR
WHO TO GIVE THE DICTATOR TO?
The Dictator is the Bard as a horror
character. The Bard is someone who
sings magical songs that alter people’s
emotional states, either positively or
negatively. The Dictator takes that and
turns it into something intensely awful.
The Dictator, as said on the sheet, is a
character class which is the most
dangerous, in how they can affect the
tone of the game. If given to an
immature player who does not
understand the seriousness of its
possibilities, it can easily be upsetting
to all the players (including the Dictator
when they realise they’ve overstepped
social boundaries).
As well as the core story of DIE, at least
one reason why the GM gets to choose
character classes is so that you get to
judge which player is most able to
handle something like the Dictator.
Equally, it’s easy for you to simply not
give any player the Dictator. If you’re at
all worried about the Dictator, I would
advise not including the Dictator.
ER… WHAT’S ACTUALLY THE PROBLEM?
The Dictator includes themes of consent
and emotional violation. The Dictator’s
challenge to the player is mainly one of
navigating these boundaries and
deciding what is acceptable, and seeing
how treating other people like tools is a
temptation to them. This can go to some
dark places, and the reason why you
want someone mature enough to play
the Dictator is so that they don’t go
there unknowingly.
To state the big obvious one: making
someone fall in love with you and then
having sex with them is rape. You have
removed their consent. It’s rape.
Admittedly, this is also true of (say) the
Charm spell in D&D. But we’re a game
which is looking at these sorts of things
seriously. Any player who thinks this is a
good idea should not be let near the
Dictator. To be honest, they shouldn’t be
let in your house.
SAFETY-PROOFING THE DICTATOR
It’s possible to safety-proof the Dictator
too, to make it less charged. Remember
that in these sub-realms of Die that the
rules can warp. Maybe a Master has
warped this world so the Dictator can’t
change the emotions of anyone who
came from a realm other than Die (i.e. It
won’t work on the players’ characters).
Playing with the emotions of the GM’s
characters is interesting enough, and
considerably reducing the chance of
something going horrifically awry.
If you realise you want to remove the
possibility mid-game, the Master
spending one of their Cheat Tokens to
do the same is an entirely viable move.
Frankly, it’s the sort of thing a Master
may do for entirely in-character reasons
– the game climaxes with a choice, and
the Dictator is the player who can
actively make someone do something
they consciously don’t want to. The
Master will obviously not want the
Dictator to use the ability on them,
making it a fair tactic.
You can also safety proof the Dictator
by limiting the emotions they can pick.
Fear and Anger are “safer” emotions, as
their most common uses are for directly
attacking someone rather than
subverting them. If you only allow a
player to select joy or trust it means
they will be unable to create the
compound emotion Love. Frankly, a
player can make a real mess with just
Trust by itself.
THE FEEL OF THE DICTATOR’S POWER
Here’s some things to keep in mind.
Everything the Dictator does should be
creepy.
Both in the effects you describe when it
happens, and how people act on it, and
how everyone acts towards the Dictator
when they do it.
Everyone is a little afraid of the Dictator.
You can signal this with friendly
characters in the world. Make
sympathetic people express their fears
of the Dictator, having characters make
the Dictator promise to not use it on
them, threatening them if they do. Do
things to give the players reasons to be
afraid of Dictator themselves.
The Dictator should be a little scared of
their own powers.
Most character classes have pretty
tight control of all their abilities. If they
roll well, they don’t have to use all those
successes. The Dictator’s abilities are
both more likely to succeed, and
partially out of their control. There
should be a reluctance to use the
abilities in some situations.
It’s worth noting that the Dictator can
be extremely persuasive merely with
the threat of using their abilities.
Wolverine doesn’t have to stab people
with his claws. That people know
Wolverine could stab people is enough.
EMOTION CONTROL DICE POOL
This is an exception to the core system.
As described on the sheet, the D4 is a
number of successes, which is then
modified up or down by the number of
successes in the rest of the pool. This
means that if someone rolls four
successes on the D4 and no actual
successes in their dice pool, they are
stuck at a level 4 rating – a level higher
than most humans ever feel. It’s also
worth noting that a critical failure (as in,
no matter what’s on the D4, no
successes and at least one 1) leads this
to this being permanent. That 4 is
enough to actually remove someone
with Wisdom 2 (Willpower 4) from a
combat, possibly fatally, should hint at
how badly this could go wrong.
THE BAD DICE AND THE DICTATOR DICE
POOL
If the dice pool includes a Bad Dice
which makes you remove a success
from the results, the successes of the
Dictator’s D6s are removed first, and
then the ones on the main D4.
Donna Dictator uses her voice, and rolls
a dice pool including a bad dice. She rolls
a 2 on her D4 and 3, 4, 5, 2 and the Bad
Dice is a 4. As the bad dice is a success,
one of the two successes generated by
her D6 is removed. Donna has two
successes, plus or minus one success.
If Donna had rolled no successes on her
D6s, the D4’s 2 would have been
reduced to 1.
WILLPOWER
All characters have Willpower on their
sheets. This is used for various
characters, but primarily is for working
with the Dictator. Willpower is not like
Health or Guard, in that it is not
removed. It is the threshold by which a
character can be overpowered by their
emotions. It’s put on the sheet just to
remember. While it could be boosted by
special abilities, it is usually just twice
the Wisdom.
EMOTIONAL LEVELS
You will note that on the sheet the
player is given only the broadest idea of
what effects their powers will have. The
players are only really given a safety
limit (3 is normal, 5 is human maximum,
6+ is supernatural) and a target for
what they’d need to do to remove
someone for combat (twice Wisdom – so
with an average Wisdom, 4). This is one
of the ways the player is encouraged to
feel uneasy – they’re not quite sure
what is going to happen. However, there
is also a big DO NOT GO FURTHER THAN
THIS sign. Will they push that far?
Level 1 and 2
At level 1 and 2, in terms of low-level use
of the ability, advantages and
disadvantages may be added to their
target, related to what the emotion is
trying to make them do. One level of
advantage (or disadvantage) per level
of emotion is a good guideline. For
example, using rage powers on a
friendly warrior to make them
aggressive at their opponent could
justify an advantage. Increasing the
amazement (which includes surprise
and distraction) of a guard looking for
thieves could lead to disadvantages to
note someone sneaking past.
In other words – it’s possible to use the
ability at a low level to support other
characters in their efforts. You can
never have more than one advantage
for an emotional state, no matter what
level you are at. There is no limit to the
number of disadvantages you could
have.
Donna the Dictator makes her friend
level 3 anger towards some orcs. They
gain an advantage while attacking them.
However, the friend she tries to stop orc
fighting and start picking locks, they
suffer three disadvantages. Hard to pick
a lock when you’re murderously angry
at some orcs.
Level 3+
As well as above, at level 3 emotion, a
character is being entirely overwhelmed
by their feelings. for example, to flee
from a combat. Most characters would
likely act on that feeling without
resisting. If a character wants to resist,
they have to roll with their Wisdom to
resist. The difficulty should be half the
level of the emotion, rounding up. This is
identical to the Emotion Knight’s
compulsions.
Level 4 and 5
Level 4 (i.e. twice the common Wisdom
2) or 5 is enough to make an average
Wisdom individual remove from combat
permanently. A level 4 fear could make
you pass out. A level 5 could make you
have a heart attack.
Level 6
Anything above level 6 and you should
be looking for supernatural effects. The
higher, the more extreme.
Hypothetical Example of Emotion
Levels
Donna Dictator uses their voice to make
a monster fear the Dictator.
With one or two successes, the monster
would have either one or two
disadvantages to strike the Dictator.
Frankly, if there was anyone else in the
area to fight, they’d likely go over there.
If there was no real reason for them to
stay, they’ll likely leave.
With three successes, the monster
would have three disadvantages to
strike the Dictator. The GM decides to
make a Wisdom roll to see if the monster
can resist fleeing. If it fails, the monster
runs.
It’s worth noting if the Dictator reclaims
the D4 from the GM to use abilities on
someone else, the monster could return
to combat. The control is instantly gone.
The Dictator’s only gets to use one
manipulation simultaneously..
Intensity 4 should make the monster too
afraid to continue the combat. They
could run, as above, but if they do it
should be in a way that makes it
impossible for them to return. They also
could fall to the floor in utter terror,
defenceless, allowing the Dictator to kill
them instantly in a free action. Passing
out is another reasonable response.
Intensity 5 pushes it further. A heart
attack. If there’s a nearby cliff, the
monster runs off it in its panic. If it fits
the tone and limits of your game, suicide
is a possible response at this level. They
are so frightened they’d rather be dead
than be in the Dictator’s presence
another second.
Intensity 6 could see the monster’s
heart literally explode in its chest or tear
their eyes out of their own head.
Intensity 7 and more are increasingly
theatrical. At level 7, you may be looking
for unexpected side-effects. In this
case, the heart exploding in a way
which actually causes their chest to
explode outwards, temporarily blinding
the Dictator.
And so on.
The negative emotion of fear makes the
downside obvious, but it should be
noted that all the emotions can be used
in similarly aggressive ways
For example, Donna Dictator has used
admiration and ecstasy emotions to
inflict a level 4 love on a monster. That’s
not enough to make their heart explode
in sheer joy, but it’s certainly enough for
the monster to look at the player sadly,
confused, tears streaming down their
face going “Why?” when the Dictator
stabs it through the heart, both literally
and metaphorically. Supernatural levels
of interest in the tip of your blade can
easily lead to someone impaling
themselves in fascination. And so on.
The Dictator is a horror character. See
what feels right. Which is normally
“what feels wrong?”
TARGET CHARACTERS WITH HIGH
WISDOM (i.e. High Willpower)
All of the above is based upon a
character with a normal range of human
emotional control – as in, a character
with Wisdom 2. As the rules state, it
takes twice the Wisdom to take a
character out of a combat. A level 3
Wisdom would need six – and a level 4
Wisdom would need eight. A Dictator is
extremely unlikely in any normal
situation to roll eight successes,
meaning high Willpower characters are
hard to be entirely overwhelmed.
This does not mean they are not feeling
the emotion, however. In fact, if you’re
experiencing it at five or higher, it’s
more than a normal human being could
bear. It’s just that the character is still
holding onto their faculties.
How does this work? You extend the
results of people with normal Willpower.
You suffer disadvantages for every level
of the emotion if doing a task which is
difficult with the emotion. You gain an
advantage on things directly related to
it. At level 3 or above, you gain
compulsions related to the effect, which
they have to roll Wisdom to resist, at a
difficulty of half the emotional level,
rounding up.
For example, Arnold Archmage has a
Willpower of 8. Donna Dictator hits him
with six successes to make him fear
Donna. While this would be enough to kill
someone with normal Willpower, it is less
than Arnold’s Willpower. However, he
suffers six disadvantages due to his
fear of Donna. A “Run away from the
scary Dictator” compulsion seems
reasonable, and to resist Arnold would
have to roll their Wisdom dice pool
against a difficulty of three.
It’s also worth noting that if a Master
does manage to match a high willpower
character, you will go straight to a 6 or 8
level effect, which is supernaturally
intense.
The character this is most likely to
happen to is the Master, who tends to
have a very high Wisdom. It is definitely
the sort of thing a Master will spend a
cheat token to get rid of.
THE EMOTION KNIGHT AND THE
DICTATOR’S SYNERGY
The Emotion Knight’s scale of emotion is
identical to the Dictator’s. The Dictator
can, if successful, move the Emotion
Knight up their scale. This is obviously a
useful strategy.
This is one area where the tone of the
Dictator is key. As in, it should not just
be viewed as a simple power up by the
players. The creepier the Dictator’s
powers feel, the less likely they’ll be
used lightly. Make sure the emotions
impact the fiction, not used casually.
MULTIPLE TARGETS
The sheet doesn’t describe this, but a
Dictator can try to use the abilities on
multiple people at once. For each person
in the group, subtract one success from
the pool.
For example, a Dictator is cornered by
three Fallen, each with Wisdom 2.
They’re going to tear the Dictator apart,
so the Dictator tries to use their
Admiration and Terror emotions to
create the compound emotion
Submission. The Dictator wants these
Fallen all on the floor hailing them. The
Dictator rolls their pool, with the D4 in it.
The D4 is a 3 and they roll two
successes. As there are three Fallen
being targeted, three of those
successes are lost, leaving two
successes. All the Fallen are now
experiencing level 2 submission. Not
enough to make them beg, but still a
powerful emotion.
RUNNING THE MASTER
WHO TO GIVE THE MASTER TO?
You. You are the Master in the playtest.
That makes it easier. At least there’s
one thing you don’t have to worry about.
They are the D&D Magic user as a
reality-warper.
CHEATING
The guidelines on the actual character
sheet show where they should be used.
It should be noted that these are for
when the Master is expressly and
deliberately fucking with the players.
Not you, the GM. The Master.
As the Gamesmaster, you create
situations where the party may be
attacked, as a response of the world. As
a Master, you spend a Cheat Token to do
it in a way which is entirely unfair – and
likely magical. They should feel different
and be presented differently. A lot is to
do with the simple symbolism of passing
the token to the players – “This is
something that is only happening
because of this.”
For example, for you as a Gamesmaster:
The Master Malcolm is cornered by the
party in his throne room. He rings a bell,
and summons the guards the players
were trying to avoid. The guards rush in.
For example, for you as the Master
spending a Cheat Token:
Master Malcolm is cornered in the party
in a dead end. There’s no escape. He
smiles and clicks his fingers… and a
secret passageway opens, and guards
rush out of it.
When to use the Cheat Token?
Whenever the Master would, which
means the Master needs to “know”
about an event to do it. Do not be
surprised if you don’t use any tokens
until the final encounter. The “survive an
attack” use of the token significantly
extends how long the Master can act in
a stand-up brawl against the players. If
the entire party are united against the
Master, without the use of tokens, they
will take the Master down quickly. With
it, it extends into a suitably sized set-
piece to climax a game.
What to use as a token? Coins should be
avoided (as they’re the Neo’s signifier)
but almost anything can work. I have a
preference for using dice unlike any
other in the game, but that does risk
confusion. If you can work out a token to
do with the setting, even better.
For example, during a story set at a
music festival, I used a flyer for the
festival as the masters’ tokens – and
actually quickly photoshopped a flyer
between sessions to use as the prop.
The passing of the token is to
lampshade that what’s happened is
unfair, and to also show the Master’s
resources are being used up.
Do the tokens do anything for the
player? As standard, no. However, that
they are an element in the game means
you should consider how they could
integrate into your adventure. They are
a free gift that your friend, the Game
Designer, has left for you to fill with your
own mystery.
(Or maybe I haven’t had a good enough
idea yet? Oh, cynic. Of course, I have a
good idea. I’m just keeping them over
there, where you can’t see them and
also the dog ate my homework.)
CHEAT TOKENS
Regenerate at the start of each session.
If a player has any, collect them up.
CHEATING WITH CHEATING
Of course, you don’t have to use all the
tokens. If you don’t, and there’s no
reason why the Master character
hasn’t, the players may feel that their
hard-fought victory has been stolen,
assuming they realise how many tokens
the Master has.
THE MASTER’S OTHER MAGICS
During a combat the Master character is
involved in, run this like the Godbinder’s
Minor Miracles, but based off
Intelligence statistic rather than
Wisdom. A Master cannot accumulate
debt to make their abilities cast.
CHANGING THE RULES
The Master’s normal magics are easier
to comprehend – the concept of the
Master messing with the rules of the
game is one I want to develop in the
future, as the Master works towards
becoming a more robust class for
players to use rather than an
antagonist. Until then, stick with the
conceptual rules tweaks below which
draws a line between Minor Rules
Tweaks and Major Rules Tweaks.
Minor Rules Tweaks are changes with
limited scope and possible advantages
to everyone, not just the Master.
Major Rules Tweaks are changes which
reduce another player’s options and are
of sole advantage to the Master.
The former can be treated as spells,
akin to a Minor Miracle for the
Godbinder. Use the difficulty of the
nearest Godbinder spell (plus one) to get
a difficulty, or use one from the Master’s
own sheet.
The latter will require a Cheat Token.
For example, Malcolm the Master wants
to tweak the rules of existence so that
for a while daggers gain a special bonus
to hurt people. This is an effect that
could help almost everyone who grabs a
dagger. This sounds like a Minor Rules
Tweak, so the Master looks up an
equivalent miracle. It sounds identical to
Bless. Its difficulty is listed as 1, so it
counts as 2.
Conversely, Malcom Master wants to
limit Donna Dictator’s voice so she can
only work on people native to Die (i.e. not
players). This limits the Dictator’s
abilities, and the Dictator’s alone. This is
a Major Rules Tweak.
Major Rules Tweaks are limited to
complications and limitations rather
than entire removals. You could not
remove a Dictators’ ability entirely. It
has to be a reasonable limitation – for
example, the Dictator’s voice doesn’t
work on this room, or on players, or
when someone else is singing. It cannot
just remove a tool.
The word “reasonable” is loaded. In
universe, if a Master tries to cheat too
hard, the reality which they’re trapped
in will resist and likely kill them. They are
a Master in a world that’s inside a ruled
by a Grandmaster, remember, and the
Grandmaster is the one who’s really in
charge. Cheat, but show some class. tend to realize that breaking the rules
This could be a useful end for a certain too hard ends badly.
sort of Master character, but Masters
RUNNING THE FALLEN
WHO TO GIVE THE FALLEN TO?
Anyone who dies. With a flourish and a
smile.
RUNNING THE FALLEN
If the players have not read DIE, they
will not be aware of the nature of the
Fallen. As such, this will be a surprise to
them. Even if not, be sure to lean into
the weirdness and horror of your friend
lurching to their feet again, awfully
changed. The zombie in pop culture is a
trope so common as to deaden us to it.
Your aim is to make this feel real and as
unusual as it would be. When describing
any player's Fallen activity, be sure to
highlight it, (as much as the vibe /
perceived age rating for your game
allows). Assuming the players are
leaning into the horror, describing
seeing bones slide beneath gaps in the
skin is about my personal minimum, for
example.
Equally (if not more) important, is
making the experience a real one for the
Fallen player themselves. What does
being a Fallen feel like? Make sure the
player knows. The technique of Asking
Questions (See Advice for
Gamesmasters) can be extremely
useful here, in terms of asking a
question of what something is like, and
then telling them it’s like something else
entirely. “You march through this grove,
full of fauna. Hey, Fallen Player, tell me
about how flowers smell” “<player
answers>” “Well, you can’t smell that
any more. All you can smell is the scents
of your friends, and the pulse in their
wrists.”
Subvert. Make being dead truly live.
SECOND DEATH
The sheet does not tell the player what
dying when already playing as a Fallen
means, but hints that it’s bad. It is bad.
For each death as a Fallen, the persona
slips further and further away. They die,
and resurrect at the end of the
encounter, with one lost statistic point.
If they die again, they lose two statistic
points, then three and so on. This is at
the Gamesmaster’s choice. Reduce all
stats to one before you reduce anything
to zero. If a player reaches zero, they
become a mindless creature. They can
carry on playing, but they’re really a
passenger that’s pushed around or
carried.
If any statistic is one and the player
returns to the real world, they suffer a
permanent ailment and impediment,
which should be worked into the
conclusion.
If they’re still zero and they’re somehow
brought back to the real world, their
persona will be either physically (if
Strength, Dexterity or Constitution) or
mentally (Wisdom, Intelligence,
Charisma) dead.
Bleak Bleak Bleak.
RECOVERING FALLEN
Bar the method described on the sheet
of intra-party fratricide, the players may
wish to pursue other methods for
returning people to life from Fallen. The
more sessions the game lasts, the more
you’ll need to do this.
In terms of options inside the party, the
Godbinder’s deities could possibly help –
but are unlikely to do so without a good
reason, which means a quest. A Neo
with sufficient gold, perhaps. The
Master’s Cheating ability is also an
option, if the Master could be
persuaded.
The key thing in all of these is that the
Fallen rules are written to demand
sacrifice – a Fallen kills someone and
takes their life, and the victim (willing or
otherwise) becomes a new Fallen. As
such, no matter what mechanic, a
meaningful sacrifice for a player may be
called for. Giving up parts of the body,
parts of their memory and so on. A
Godbinder is likely to be aware of this. A
Master using a Cheat Token is aware
that it’s unlikely to be as simple as that –
the cheats have limitations. Bringing a
Fallen back, only for them to become a
Fallen again before they leave the
dimension, for example. Perhaps being
left behind, as it’s too late. Or the Master
actually becomes Fallen due to making
the wish, perhaps also not realising.
It needs a cost. It also needs work.
Equally, powerful GM-controlled
characters could perform the task –
something which obviously includes the
Godbinder’s gods. They could ask for
player sacrifice, or questionable
activities inside the world itself. What
are you willing to do to get a friend
back?
The relative ease or difficulty of
returning a Fallen to life through any
other method speaks to the tone of the
game you wish. The harder it is, the
more likely players will be left behind by
their party who choose to return to
existence OR a player murders another
player to stop being Fallen. Either way –
and the latter automatically includes the
former – the darker the ending will be.
There is an exception: in a game with a
pure antagonistic Master, the “Fallen
murders the Master to return to life”
tends to come across as a just ending.
Dark, sure, but not abyssal bleak.
If you want a lighter tone, a GM-
controlled character (such as a god)
offering a simpler quest to return them
to life is a good solution. If you want a
darker tone, the quests should be just
as dark as the murder-your-friends
method. In fact, possibly identical – a
god insisting the Master is murdered is a
good one, in that it moves the dilemma
from the Fallen character to the whole
party. Whether the god reincarnates the
Fallen player before or after the task is
done is a matter of style.
It perhaps goes without saying that if
the Players try to cheat the gods and
not perform the task, the once-Fallen
character will return to being Fallen as
the others leave, trapping them in Die
forever.
Of course, I say the above makes it dark.
For some groups I’m sure the gleeful
inter-party murder is embraced with
nary a care for the consequences. In
which case, you should go and buy
Paranoia, as your players would love it,
and your Friend The Computer needs the
money.
Player Fallen can be hacked by a
determined Neo to immobilise them. This
is a useful leash. They can also be
influenced by Dictators.
FALLEN SHEETS
There’s one sheet in the PDF. You may
want to print a couple of them if you
think it’s going to get messy. In reality,
people can share. Let’s spare mother
nature our awful yoke.
NON-PLAYER FALLEN
Nothing gets resurrected if a non-player
Fallen kills a player. All the other Fallen
are too far gone. They’re over the event
horizon and can’t find their way back,
and are trapped with their terrible
hunger. Talking of a terrible hunger, I’m
feeling peckish. Let’s have a snack
before the next section.
This is broad advice for anyone running
this game. There’s some more in the
Arcana, along with the weirdo rules.
SAFETY TOOLS
This is a game and a nice time. Let’s
keep it that way.
This is a brief overview of various ways
to make the game safer. The core basics
have been included in the text, but are
repeated here for ease of access. All
these are ideas from the RPG
community, none of which are mine –
google them up and nose.
THE X-CARD
As conceived by John Stavropoulos,
this is one (or more) cards with an “X”
drawn on it, placed on the table. If any
player (including the GM) touches it, it
means they are uncomfortable with the
current topic or subject and we should
change direction. It does not mean
asking questions about what the
element is, or naming it, though some
people will say (“This is too violent for
me”). X-card can be activated for any
reason, even minor ones (characters
with names who have bad connections
for a player is a good example – X-card
does not mean someone has fucked up.
It means someone is bothered.).
The original documentation is here:
http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg
You should also be aware as a GM to
watch players. Not all players will
remember the X-card, especially if
stressed. You can also use the X-card,
even if you said it.
Don’t play DIE without the X-card any
more than you would drive a car without
brakes. DIE has the potential to go
anywhere, and that includes bad places.
Don’t drive off the cliff.
The X-card is the popular version of this
concept, but there’s other more
sophisticated ones which allow more
nuanced expression. Have a look at the
Script Change Toolbox
(https://briebeau.itch.io/script-change)
or Safety Flowers
(https://breakoutcon.com/extras/safety
-tools/) for more complicated versions
of the same ideas.
RATINGS AND GENRE
This is in the opening discussion with
the players, and gives broad guidelines
for the sort of content which will be
included. It’s a discussion of elements
that may be in the game – inter-group
conflict, for example – and is also is
meant to warn players the game may go
that way, which makes it less possibly
destabilising when it does. It also allows
groups who really don’t want to do that
to angle away from it.
VEILS AND LINES
A concept I believe introduced by Ron
Edwards in Sex & Sorcery, this is
formalising content that can or cannot
be the game. Lines are things which
simply you don’t do. Veils are things
which you include, but cut away from.
One of my usual Lines is that I don’t
include racial slurs or sexual violence.
One of my usual Veils is explicit sex
acts. Don’t include the former at all. Cut
to black for the latter.
I’ve found doing this live on the table is
difficult. You may wish to introduce the
concept of Veils and Lines at the end of
the first session, and then say you’ll
make a shared document, and ask
people to add anything they want as a
Line or Veil to it. And clearly, make it
anonymous.
BLEED
It’s less a tool, and more something you
need to be aware of. Games exist in a
magic circle – so you are not the
persona you play. If I stab and kill you in
game, it’s not because of my personal
enmity to you – it’s my persona’s
personal enmity to you. Bleed is what
happens when the emotion of one
crosses into the other.
This is neither a good nor bad thing –
some people actively chase bleed to
process, play with or experience intense
emotions. However others – especially
those new to the form who had no idea
that this could happen – may find it too
much for them, at least initially. Being
aware of how emotionally agitated
someone is key – X-cards exist for a
reason, and you can always suggest (or
call for) a break.
AFTERCARE
As mentioned earlier, this is a phrase
lifted from the S&M community, and is
about leaving room to emotionally
support people and let them recover. I
would advise for some time after a
game to just unpack with one another,
talk about what got to them and their
feelings about what occurred.
This is another good reason to plan so
your session does not run to the time
someone has to run for a train. If
someone has already left, check in on
them as soon as possible.
As I said – this is the tip of iceberg, but
it’s been put first in this section, even in
this form, because it is important.
ALTERNATIVE MODES OF PLAY
Here’s some thoughts on other ways of
playing.
ONLINE PLAY
DIE spends a lot of time on the physical
fetishism of objects, especially dice. As
such, there’s obvious problems in terms
of running it online.
Firstly, it’s worth spending some time to
think of ways to tweak the scenario to
suit the fact you’re all distributed all
over the world. Maybe the group hasn’t
actually all got together in real life, but
are still playing online. You’ll have to
change the room the personas get
transported to, but bar that, there’s few
changes required.
In terms of actually running it, there’s
two main ways that groups work…
1) Real-world dice rolled locally and
everyone trusts everyone to be
honest
2) computer dice at a shared source
1) Real World Dice
This is the easiest one to fit into DIE, as
it just involves working out alternate
approaches.
Obviously, you can’t pass a dice to the
player. Instead, you should check they
have their own set of dice, and ensure
they have them to hand.
Then tweak the style of speaking like
so…
“Take your DX. It’s a DX like any other.
Close your hand. Concentrate. Now,
open your hand. This DX? It’s the only DX
in our game. It’s yours.”
It may be especially useful to decide
who gets what archetype before the
game even starts, to make sure they
have the right dice. I’m the sort of fancy
person who may actually mail each
character a package, with a “DO NOT
OPEN UNTIL I TELL YOU” sticker on it.
That’s me.
For abilities where the dice is taken
away from a player, encourage each
player to have a bag or a cup where
they can put their dice, and symbolically
remove it from. For passing to another
player, place in the bag/cup and then
just make a note.
For passing players sheets like the
Fallen, just mail it to them at an apposite
moment. The Fallen is not a sheet that
needs to be printed.
In short: muddle through.
2) Computer Dice
Even if you do all the rolling digitally, I
would try to give each player access to
a physical version of their class dice,
even if they never actually roll it. As a
prop for them to hold, it’s worth holding,
and various classes use the dice in a
non-rolling way.
To play with no dice at all, you’ll have to
tweak some of the key statements. For
example, instead of handing out dice,
fetishize the mailing of the character
sheet.
“You are a [Name of Class]. You are the
only [name of class in this whole game].
You are special, [Name of Class].”
THE SINGLE SESSION
I originally thought this Beta would be
for a game that’d happily play in a single
evening. Wrong, I was.
That persona creation and character
generation can balloon risks leaving no
actual time to go on the real adventure.
Plus a time gap between the mostly
standardized first session and a second
session whose encounters are entirely
based upon the personas’ quirks mean
you have time to sit back and think
about what may be fun. The
disadvantage to running two sessions is
that players will have forgotten bits of
their persona or character between the
games but, on the balance, I think at
least two sessions sits easier.
This isn't necessary, however. If you are
confident enough to improvise
encounters based on the above, you
can play in one longer session. Go
ahead and do it. It's how I did all the first
playtests of the game.
To trim the content slightly to fit more
easily into the session, you may
consider the following...
1. Give more firm guidance to start
Persona Generation. Give a setting,
how each player knows each other
and suggest a key character in the
group. It's easier to improvise ideas
when given the specific prompt of
“you're the old school computer
club” than “you were friends at
school”.
2. Use pre-generated characters. As
you hand out the dice, hand out a
character sheet with the abilities
already chosen. The disadvantage
here is that it will reduce the time
with the players playing their
persona in real life, so give less
chance for people to establish
themselves in “reality”.
3. Use the Light versions of the second
sheets.
4. Cut the number of encounters before
the conclusion. Two encounters plus
the first confrontation against the
Fallen is a good number. You can
always add another one if it’s
running short.
5. Be very aware of how much time you
have to play, and ensure you leave
enough time for the final encounter
and the epilogue. I would say that if
there's an hour left of the session,
you should be thinking of moving to
the final encounter. Don't be afraid to
bring the final encounter to the
players if time is pressing. The
Master can come and try and finish
them off.
It's also worth noting that many of the
above can be used in a two-session
game, especially suggestion 5.
THE HYPER CURTAILED SESSION
If you want to, you can really cut this
baby short. Persona generation,
character generation, fight against the
Fallen and then straight onto the final
confrontation with the Master. I’ve
played it in that format, and it still works
either as a big battle or actually sitting
down and having a serious conversation
about family issues that have led to
their estrangement and/or being
kidnapped to a bleak fantasy world.
I have a few ideas for other quick-start,
limited planning versions of DIE down
the line too. Beta, remember. Beta.
PLAYING WITH MULTIPLES OF THE
SAME CLASS (aka "THE HIGHLANDER
VARIANT")
As standard, each player has a different
dice. There is no more than one Neo,
Emotion Knight, etc. This is to feed into
the world, increase the importance of
the dice fetishization and player
individuality. After all, each class can be
personalised in radical ways.
However...
If you want to play with multiple players
of each class, simply do so. Do not
change the actual ritual when
distributed. Say there is only one of this
dice, despite the fact another player
clearly has one.
See where it goes. Can both be right? Is
one wrong? The name of this variant
may give a clue to where I suspect the
story will end up going.
This variant is really me just thinking of
a party full of Emotion Knights, each
with a different emotion, running around
like a murderous version of Pixar's
Inside Out.
This is also the solution if you want to
try and play a game with more than the
recommended number of players.
THE CAMPAIGN
“BUT I DON'T WANT TO RUN THIS AS A
ONE-OFF!” you say, in capitals.
Hey! While written as a single scenario,
it can be run longer. It's not as if I can
stop you. If we develop this from the
Beta, clearly this mode of play is
something we’d want to do.
In the meantime, here’s some rule-of-
thumb tactics for improvising
advancement. I’d suggest letting each
player choose one new ability from their
sheet for their character for every
adventure. I would advise against being
able to increase statistics. I would also
consider starting characters with less
choices and a lower statline if you really
want to run a long campaign. Players
are already extremely powerful in basic
DIE.
(For example, you could try starting the
Dictator with one emotion, the
Godbinder with one god, the Neo with
one piece of equipment, the Emotion
Knight with a cap on what level of sword
attacks they can use, and the Fool
without some of the ability to hand over
their dice to the GM. Start the players
with one four stat and one three stat
too. I say, off the top of my head.)
Also note that if running a long
campaign, the present system
deliberately leads towards relatively
swift player death. You will likely use
other methods to bring people back to
life than the basic ‘eating another
player’ – or make player death rarer. The
easiest way to do that would be to avoid
any instant death in any normal combat
situations, and characters only die if not
revived by the end of the combat.
(They should die in some obvious “Oh,
no, that person is dead” moment. Like
being eaten by a dragon and then
pooped out the other end.)
I will mention one mechanic which I’m
playing around with, which is a third
sort of damage – as well as Guard and
Health there are Hero points. Guard
regenerates every combat. Health only
regenerate when a character is healed.
Hero points are a resource which
includes the increased ability to survive
chaos that True Heroes have. If you add
something like levels, for every level,
gain a Hero point. Hero Points are lost
after Guard but before Health, and only
regenerate between sessions. You
could try it so that Hero Points are lost
only when you would lose the last point
of Health, meaning they extend your
“nearly dead” period rather than your
“totally healthy” period. This is entirely
unplaytested, I stress.
Finally, if you wish to run this as a
campaign, you'll have to bear in mind
not to bring the character's interactions
to the boil until the final session. If the
party decide to go their separate ways
early in the story, the game will
effectively break. In the full edition, we'll
have some helpful approaches to make
the game operate even when the
characters do go their separate ways.
But for now, of if you go further than
one-offs or very short campaigns,
you're basically on your own.
Good luck. Do tell me how you get on.
MAKING THE PERSONAS NOT OLD
FRIENDS GETTING BACK TOGETHER
This Beta has a standard scenario of old
gaming friends getting together. If your
players seem particularly excited about
trying something else, you can try it. In a
real way, the possibilities are basically
endless.
For example: a playtest in a games
company; a training exercise at work; an
old people's home; a pick-up game at a
con; group therapy; astronauts aboard
a space station; Mad-Max-style
survivors in the ruins of civilization;
Roman centurions on Hadrian's Wall
circa 100AD.
I wouldn't necessarily jump to the idea
that a weird situation is in any way
better. The more mundane the real-
world setting, the more credible the
resulting drama in the game will be
when you put them in an unusual place.
Playing cave people dealing with a
modern fantasy world maybe an
interesting role-playing challenge, but I
suspect it’s one which is best for people
who are already familiar with DIE. It’s
also one which is gimmickier and
distances us from the reality of the
scenario.
For this playtest, I'd strongly suggest
keeping to a mundane setting even if
you're not old friends, but – hey – it's
your game.
I would be particularly careful about
making them all strangers. Personas
who don’t know or care about each
other will tend to lead towards a flat
experience.
Most importantly, if none of the
personas had a previous fantasy
gaming experience, the adventure
generation described in this document
will not work for the group. You’ll have
to use some of the alternative world
generation tactics from the Arcana.
YOUR GAME SUCKS! DON’T WANNA
PLAY YOUR GAME!
There’s a lot of ideas in DIE. If you want
to lift them and run your own game with
another system, go knock yourself out.
A persona design stage, followed by
character creation in whatever system
of your choice, followed by being
transformed into those characters?
That sounds like a fun time to me. Go
knock. Be happy. I won’t mind.
ENCOURAGING (AND LISTENING TO)
PLAYERS
DIE is a role-playing game which
presents a difficult role-playing problem.
You’re playing a role-playing game
where someone is playing a role-playing
game. That’s easy to get you confused,
especially with new players who may be
having trouble with the whole “pretend”
thing anyway.
Here’s some ways to make it simpler.
Firstly, make it clear that when they are
transported to Die and are then
transformed into a fantasy warrior, they
are still their persona. That Susana the
Library Clerk is now an eight-foot
barbarian warrior with a sword that’s
telling her to murder doesn’t change the
fact that she’s still Susana. She’s just
Susana with a whole lot of different
abilities, in a completely different body.
I have used the “mecha suit” metaphor.
You are the person you always were.
You’re just in this enormously powerful
body.
As such, encourage them to react as
they think their persona would. Listen to
a player’s decisions, and respond to
them. Some personas, if threatened by a
monster and now have a huge sword,
are going to use the sword. That means
they’re going to lean into this heroic
fantasy character. They probably want
to give a straight-up fight. Other people,
who are just as powerful abstractly, will
say “I’m a fucking librarian and they are
scary monsters. I’m clearly going to run
away.” That tells you as the GM they
want a different sort of experience, and
you should listen to that too. They
probably want a chase sequence, which
could either end up with them
embracing their abilities or some other
manner of escape. Don’t punish a player
for making honest, interesting choices.
Expect to have a mix – many games
have some characters who are virtually
catatonic in shock, while others are
treating the whole thing as a literal
videogame. The interaction between
these two sorts of characters can be
golden.
Seen the recent remake of Jumanji? I
describe DIE in interviews as “goth
Jumanji” and while all the bleak horror
that implies is my personal preferred
mode of play for DIE, it’s not the only
one. You can completely run DIE as a
comedy game if you want, and make it
all about the comic juxtaposition
between the people in the real world
and their awesome (or limited) new
forms. But even literal Jumanji could
have turned into a heart-breaking thing
if you let players at it. Maybe Geek Boy
wants to be the Rock so badly that he
murders his peers to stay that way?
That’s the DIE way.
A regular thing, especially for new
players, is to look down at their
character sheet to see what ability to
use. Try to discourage this. I regularly
ask players to “Look up at the fiction,
not down at your sheet.” Listen to the
situation the GM and players are
describing, and answer honestly what
you think you should do. Always trying
to find something clever to do almost
always ends up weakening the fiction.
For example, a monster is about to come
into the room you’re in. You could look
down on your sheet and work out a Doing the obvious thing makes the world
whole thing about bartering with a god realer, and gives people solid dramatic
to create an ice wall or anything else. situations to build on.
And maybe that’s fun.

But the “I shut the fucking door” is the

response which rings truest, to me.
PLAYERS PLAYING AS PERSONAS
There is a tension in DIE’s design which
is difficult to circumvent. In practice,
your group will find their own way. The
problem is the transition from the real
world to Die. Before that, we move from
all players (including the Master) being
in character with everything they do, to
the Master taking a more traditional
Gamesmaster role, providing narrative.
Some players instinctively mimic the
Master’s choice, and start playing in a
more traditional way, treating their
character more like a playing piece,
moving between speaking as their
character and narrating their character
from the outside, leaning towards the
latter. Others go the other way, and
carry on playing their persona who is
controlling their character.
There isn’t a right option here. At least,
at the moment, I don’t think there’s a
right option. A group should find its own
rhythm.
The only problem with players choosing
to stay in persona at all times is
information flow towards the Master.
The game is reliant on the Master (and,
in fact, the other players) knowing what
a persona is really going through, so
they can tailor their choices towards
serving that story. If a player is in
character as the persona at all time, it
means they will likely be lying, because
people lie.
The solution is to regularly mine for
information, especially when you
suspect a persona is acting contrary to
their desires. A question structure which
is effective is one which separates the
player from the persona. For example,
“PLAYER NAME, how is PERSONA NAME
really feeling right now?” That prompts
the answer you’re looking for. Doing it
will also put the idea into players’
heads, and they’ll be more likely to
signal where their actions differ from
their persona’s actual feelings.
For example, in this group Bertha is
playing Antony. Players are about to
enter a cave consisting of spiders with
the face of Antony’s teenage bully on.
GM: So, everyone want to continue?
Everyone else: Hell yeah!
Bertha: Yeah, okay. I’m with you guys.
GM: Bertha – how is Antony actually
feeling right now?
Bertha: Utterly terrified. He’s just
become an arachnophobe too, but he’s
always been vulnerable to peer
pressure so is going along.
GM: Great. Onwards.
<GM makes note, and plans to bring
Antony’s peer-pressure into it again
later…>
PREMISE REJECTION
This is a concept I first heard codified by
Robin D. Laws, specifically in his
podcast with Kenneth Hite: Robin and
Ken Talk about Stuff. Google and go
listen.
Premise rejection is when a player (or
the whole group) rejects the reason why
they’re playing the game. Imagine the
council in Rivendell in Lord of the Rings
where everyone’s meeting to decide
what to do about the ring of Sauron, and
the players all come down hard on (at
best) using this evil artefact as a cock
ring and (at worst) just deciding to leave
the ring here and go back to Hobbiton to
hopefully sexytimes with Rosie.
It’s something all games have the
possibility of, based upon a lack of what
is described as “buy in”. Buy in is
basically the players not agreeing (or
understanding) why they’re there. If
you’re playing a horror game, and you
run away from the scary mansion, you
are rejecting the premise. If you’re
playing a game of heroic adventure and
you run away from the heroic
adventure, you’re rejecting the premise.
There is a lot about DIE’s design which
tries to mitigate this. The stuff at the
start where you say broadly what the
game is? That’s meant to explain to
people what we’re here to do. While
dropping someone into a fantasy world
and let them act however they wish may
seem to be a recipe for players being
awkward, there is actually only one
moment in DIE when player rejection
matters. It’s the section in the persona-
playing section where a persona wishes
to leave the table. Clearly, someone just
wanting to walk out of the game is a
problem, which is why I floated some
ideas about what to do if someone does.
In practice, a player who bails at this
point is either someone who wants to
detonate games or an experienced
player who is trying to play with the
limitations of the game. For the former,
there’s nothing you can do. For the
latter, showing you’re open to them
seeing how long the leash is is fine.
However, once the players are actually
inside the realm of Die, there’s basically
very little they can do which counts as
premise rejection. What’s interesting is
that players may believe they are
rejecting the premise when in fact
premise rejection in many forms is
100% part of the game. The most
common one is “This is not real. I will not
act like it’s real.”
The solution comes from the story
you’ve set up. Follow the rules as set up
in the world. Players who don’t grab the
dice have 2 in all statistics. Players who
don’t engage with threats are killed, and
become Fallen. Players who die
repeatedly become Fallen repeatedly,
and have their strength and will slip
away.
They key thing is to not make this
appear vindictive. It’s neutral. It’s just
stuff that’s happening, which is
interesting. A player acting like the
universe isn’t real will have to
experience the horror of a universe that
has no interest in their solipsism. This is
a really interesting story. How can they
find their way back from that? Well,
that’s also in the “Running The Fallen”
section, right?
However, there’s two ways in which
premise rejection happens – either part
of the party or the whole of the party.
If part of the party rejects the premise in
some way, and the other part goes on
an adventure, you have part of the
group who are in some ways
defenceless. Do a scene with the main
group, and then skip back to the
dissenters. Now, they’re either not doing
anything, or not taking the magical
abilities we’ve offered them. Die is a
hostile place. Even if the Master is
friendly, the Grandmaster who is above
all our bullshit isn’t. All manner of awful
stuff can happen, which likely kills them,
which likely makes them become Fallen
(with all the descriptions of physical
horror as part of that) and gives them a
nod.
Some players who are now cybernetic
zombies will likely try to catch up to the
party. They do so, and reenter the main
story. If they continue not wanting to be
anything… well, I’d ask them if they want
to see how this ends up. If they do, tell
them to go play videogames and you’ll
shout at the climax where you can
reintegrate them. If not, tell them to go
home. I’d never invite them to play a
game again.
Second is absolute premise rejection by
everyone – where the party just refuses
to engage with what you’ve thrown
upon them, and head off and do their
own thing.
This is actually the easier one. The
players are in a world controlled (to
some degree) by their antagonist.
Respond to what they want to do, but be
aware that your Master is there. You will
likely want to make your Master more a
pure antagonist who wishes the party
ill, and have him send problems at the
heroes (either from in-world situations
or using his powers). This makes it a
“It’s him or us” situation, and if the
players come to the Master, we get the
conclusion that way. If not, the Master
comes to them, which does the same
(based on the same concepts of
escalation as described in the earlier
rules – as in, pushing towards a final
decision from the group).
Equally, there is the core problem of the
world they’re in – they either all go
home, or all stay, and if they don’t come
to a decision, the world ends.
Eventually, if they do nothing, they’re all
going to die.
(And in the game!)
If you really desperately want the
Master to remain sympathetic,
remember Die itself is hostile and
there’s always the Grandmaster. Die
itself wants players dead. Die likes
Fallen.
In a real way, the world is a closed
circuit. Players do things. Reactions
happen. See how the players respond to
the reactions. Onwards. At the absolute
worse, all the players will end up as
Fallen and so be trapped in Die forever.
And the story about how a group of
gamers get lost forever in their
fantasies is 100% a story.
TL; DR: there is no premise rejection
when all their rejections are part of the
premise.
WORLDBUILDING AND EFFECT ON THE
FINAL DECISION
To state the obvious: the nature of the
world you visit highly skews the odds on
the final decision.
The weirder you make the setting, the
more likely players are to leave. Even if
they’re going to rule it now, living in a
hellish dimension full of warped
elements is not something that’s
attractive. The exception here is if they
get to rework it, somehow. Even then,
their whole experience being in the
weird, warped world is not likely to
tempt them.
The more “normal” you make the setting
(and the more the Master is clearly the
villain of the world, and the world would
be fine without it) the more likely you
push someone into wanting to stay.
THE OBVIOUS THING ABOUT LABYRINTH
SOME OF YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
This risks patronising some of you, but
bear with me. It's a useful example if you
know it already.
It’s about Sarah, a dreamy girl on the
edge of young adulthood, rebelling
against parental authority who
accidentally gets her kid brother
kidnapped by the Goblin King. She
enters his realm, traverses a labyrinth
full of weird stuff which forms a series
of challenges. She eventually
overcomes them, and triumphs, entering
adulthood while still holding onto the
love of all this fantasy.
DIE is darker than Labyrinth, but the
point of the story structure (and many
story structures like it) remains the
same. You go to fantasy to discover
something about yourself and return
understanding yourself better. Labyrinth
is definitely one worth rewatching
while thinking about DIE, or fantasy
generally. Hell, the Goblin King is a pretty
close analogue to the role the Master
plays in DIE.
Anyway – the obvious thing. It's relevant
for DIE.
All the things Sarah meets during her
travels in the labyrinth are the toys in
her bedroom. Literally. Everything she
meets we see in her bedroom
beforehand.
They are cultural detritus which the
story transforms into the dressing of
the mythic challenges. They are pop
culture turned into whimsical horror set
dressing.
In short: look for the toys in the
persona's bedroom.
DIE, NARRATIVE RPGS AND THE
MARSHMALLOW MAN RULE
I’ll save most of my worst rambling for
the Arcana, but let’s sign off with this.
I’d argue the major mode of narrative
RPGs at the moment involves players
influencing the game world’s creation
directly. As in, rather than the GM
creating the world the player moves
through, the players and the GM
collaborate in some way to create the
details of the reality, not just the actions
of the players’ characters in an
environment.
This operates across a whole world of
scales.
For example, in an early minor way
foreshadowing this, Hong Kong Cinema
combat game Feng Shui encouraged
players to invent items to use mid-
combat. So, if the fight is in the bar,
players may say throw someone into a
one-armed bandit sending coins flying
everywhere. Until the player invented it,
there was no one-armed bandit – the
responsibility is devolved from the GM to
the players. It’s a device to add to the
freewheeling action-setpiece of the
genre it describes.
More narrative games give the players
even more power; moments where they
can get to dictate things. For example,
to use a trad RPG setting, if the players
discover a nest of orcs, in a traditional
game, the players would assume the GM
has a map, and the details of who’s in
there and why. In a game of Dungeon
World or similar, there may be a moment
when the GM asks “the orcs have
captured someone who you know from
childhood. Who are they? Tell me about
them.”
Clearly, the examples are coarse, and
even the traddest of RPGs often have
some elements of the player-as-world-
generators (How many long character
bios did we write in the 1980s?) but the
point is there. Players get to add
important elements to the setting and
guide the narrative in meaningful and
powerful ways. The argument is that if
the players have made the world, it
means more to them.
These games are great. Frankly, most of
the games I play are these sorts of
games.
DIE doesn’t tend to work like this. At
least, not always.
The players have lots of room to create
things at the persona level. They can
create almost everything about
themselves and their identity. And, as
we’ve talked about, this will then be
interpreted by the GM to create
situations to move or horrify the player.
This principle is a useful one to consider
throughout DIE. The players have given
the GM something… but they don’t know
how it will turn out, or what it’s for. This
is designed to create a level of fear of
what could happen, but also mystery.
You simply don’t know what the
consequences of some actions will be,
and that is both terrifying, but also a
delight.
While the majority of these are based
around persona generation, or the open-
ended persona generation above – the
equivalent of “Tell me about your bully
from childhood” “<Player gives details
from the character>” “Well, this monster
that just walked in the room looks like
that guy” – it doesn’t have to be just
that. I encourage using the principle
widely.
Listen to the players. Do something with
what they give you.
For example, to use a playful example, I
once asked the players to name a work
of art. They named the awesome ‘Truth
Climbs Out Of Her Well’. At which point, I
introduce a Godzilla-sized Truth Climbs
Out Of Her Well into the game.
Point being, the players have huge
power – but the response is
unpredictable. They know whatever
choice they make, it will be fed into the
game in some way out of their control…
But it will certainly impact it. They can’t
avoid it.
And we think of the Ghostbusters, at the
end of the original movie, told to choose
the shape of the destroyer of the planet.
They try to avoid thinking of anything,
but Ray thinks of the Marshmallow Man,
and a hundred tonnes of confectionery
is going to fuck up New York.
That is a very DIE moment.
And it’s lucky that Ray made that
choice, as I always thought that their
attempt to cheat the system was clearly
doomed. If they think of nothing, I dare
say that it’s not that the world wouldn’t
end… it would be that an Evil
Nothingness would consume everyone.
And that’s a damn sight harder to fight
than a Marshmallow man.
For all the fun and power in being able to
make stuff up in a narrative RPG, there
is a genuine magic to a player saying
what they want to do and the GM
leaning over and telling them what
happened. There is a verisimilitude to it
being out of your control – which is what
most narrative games use the dice for.
Being listened to. Being cared for.
Because really? The GM as Master isn't
true. The GM is a servant. They are
attentively acting as a player’s senses,
and every time they do so, they are
deeply submissive. Each description is a
little love letter, written directly to the
player. There is a play to each player’s
ego here, and even when describing the
worst things, this is for them.
Once again, we return to the Goblin King:
“I have done it all for you.”
Have fun.
Kieron Gillen
London
GAMEOGRAPHY
I played a lot of games in the last few
years, for the writing of DIE – both the
comic and the game. Frankly, all of them
influenced this RPG, indirectly or
directly. At the absolute least, doing it
brought a sharp focus on how I play a
game, what I like and what I don’t.
But these are ones I can trace specific
elements to. That I can remember.
There’s probably more.
Paranoia
The first RPG I ever played as a teenager
which made me realise that game
design, in all its part, could be art. Also,
that art includes slapstick. The idea that
intra-party aggression, if framed
correctly to serve a higher aesthetic
purpose, could be a feature not a bug
starts here.
Dungeon World/Apocalypse World
I think it’s fair to call D. Vincent Baker
and Meguey Baker’s Apocalypse World
the single most influential RPG of the
10s, creating its own narrative indie sub-
genre. In terms of direct influence Sage
LaTorra and Adam Koebel’s Dungeon
World – a narrative RPG that tries to
capture the idea of how D&D feels to
play – is the one you can see most finger
prints on. DIE has little mechanically in
common with either game, but DIE owes
a huge amount to its grammar, visual
design and especially how the Powered
by Apocalypse games use playbooks.
Monsterhearts 2
Talking of Apocalypse World… Avery
Adler’s Monster Hearts 2 is a game of
sexy queer teenage angsty monsters,
and a metaphor run gloriously rampant. I
always say, Ginger Snaps the RPG. DIE
doesn’t mechanise relationships like
Monsterhearts does for aesthetic
reasons, but I can’t say I wasn’t
tempted. If you’re thinking of questions
like “How to play responsibly” this slim,
elegant and brilliant tome is just
wonderful. For the record, if you were to
try and run a WicDiv RPG, this is your
choice.
Alas Vegas
A game which, for some reason, I keep
on thinking is called Alan Vegas. Father
of indie-RPG’s James Wallis’ latest
project, a personal and deeply weird
game of Lynch-in-Vegas amnesiac
horror. The main influence was tonal – in
that, it’s such a charismatic,
argumentative manual where the writer
is rejecting the neutral, service-industry
tone of many indie-RPGs in favour of just
coming in big and forwarding itself as an
active collaborator in the game. DIE isn’t
anywhere near that far, but as much as
Paranoia, this was a tonal influence in
how the rules could be expressed.
When the Dark Is Gone
Not actually an influence on DIE itself,
but working an interesting parallel
evolution. Becky Annison’s game
(collected in Pelgrane Press’ Seven
Wonders anthology) has all the players
as a therapy group of adults, looking
back at their time as teenagers who
went to a fantasy world. If you’re
interested in the emotional terrain that
DIE explores, and want to try something
that’s away from traditional D&D, you
really should look at this.
M.E.R.P.S.
The ICE Middle-earth RPG, and the first
thing I ever played. Generally speaking,
whenever I made a dumb, instinctive
decision when designing DIE it’s harked
back to some formative thing I picked up
from this. I would never play this game
in 2019, but I simultaneously can’t
escape it. How can I not mention it?
Fiasco
Jason Morningstar’s seminal narrative
storytelling game is, to use the idiom of
the 1980s games press, a Coen-
brothers-’em-up. I’ve played a lot of
narrative games since, but Fiasco is
what made me realise I could start a
game like I start DIE. It wouldn’t surprise
me if a later edition has more
mechanised and guided group-
generation options either.
Halo
Invented the “shield and health” dual-
health system in videogames, which is a
clear influence on the damage system in
DIE. The mechanic meant that rather
than fights either being entirely safe
(when your health is high) or entirely
deadly (when your health is low) it
pushed all fights towards that razor
edge.
Blades in the Dark
John Harper’s excellent game of magic-
punk Peaky Blinders gang warfare. It’s a
fascinating game – one of the most
interesting on this list – but the
influence is less in the game, and more
how it teaches its rules. It’s a hell of a
manual, and worth unpacking.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (3rd
Edition)
The system which grew into Fantasy
Flight’s current Genesys system started
here, and uses a whole mass of custom
dice to create narrative effects. I always
knew that DIE would run off a dice pool
system (not least because dice pools
were the new hotness in 1991 when Sol
would have abstractly made the game)
but “reading” a pool of dice for more
information than just “Success/Not
success” led to the Special rules in DIE.
Legend/Lords of Chaos
Two RPG/strategy games with spell
construction systems which are the
clear influence for DIE’s magic rules.
PLAYTESTERS
Mink ette, Abigail Brady, Alex Sarrl, Will
Cornish, Chrissy Williams, Laurie Penny,
Claire Gamble, Pablo Vazquez, Ellis
Saxey, Daniel Nye Griffiths, Alex
Paynter, Marta Maria Casetti, Mark
Sable, Juliette Capra, Steve
Lauterwasser, Stephanie Hans, Tia
Vasiliou, Jody Houser, Taliesin Jaffe,
Sarah Gordon, Adlai McCook, Alex
Spencer, Alex Hern, Ram V, Dan Watters,
Tom Armitage, Sarah Jaffe, Dave
Aldhouse, Duncan Thomas, Valeria
Ragni. Rachel Nations, Jack Tang-
Cockerill!, Henry White, Aaron Silverman,
Cory Hodge, Ben "Books" Schwartz,
Carrie Marx, Jenni Hill, Elizabeth
Sandifer, Penn Wiggins, Anna Wiggins,
Nassira Nicola, Emily Stewart, Marieke
Nijkamp, Francesca Zappia, Rebecca
Coffindaffer, John Denning, Kevin Grubb,
Claire Salant, Wright Rickman, Josh
Kaufman, Rocky, Chad Owen, Buddy
Pollack, Ella Moran, Matthew Lettini,
Tyler Cooke, Michael Rathbone, Anne
Perry, Jared Shurin, Fleur Clarke,
Andrew Griffin. Goose the Cat.
SPECIAL THANKS TO…
Mink ette, Jenni Hill, Ray Fawkes, Rian
Hughes, Chrissy Williams, Mark Sable