Games like Five Trials

Ten years after an experiment, a group of clones return to the lab for their last moments, all believing they are the original, and the only one that will not die. Denatured is a live-action roleplaying game by Rachel Rudy Logistics: Participants: Four to six people, with six being the ideal, one of whom facilitates.Time: Roughly two hours plus additional time for an introduction and a debrief.Th…

Sure, call it a ghost, that works. A ghost killed your dad. The truth is that there are ultradimensional monsters that can move back and forth across dimensions to fuck with our shit.  Why they do this we do not know, but they have done it throughout recorded history. They are angels and devils and UFOs and bigfoot.  From our point of view it is just senseless, mendacious evil. Now we have machine…

It’s been seven years since John Pratt, The Patrioteer, was thrown into a collapsar by his nemesis, “The Empress of Crime”, King Moltke.  He has finally been declared dead. Now his children and friends have the unenviable task of dividing up his considerable estate according to his wishes. He wants you to sort it all out yourselves. He was that kind of guy. Get ready for the world’s worst family r…

In a fantasy village, witches exist on the margins of society and are treated very badly.  That is why they become witches in the first place. In The Black Drink, they must choose what indignities are worth enduring. Past that limit, they must go to desperate extremes to summon agreeable demons, gain their help, and learn the secret rituals necessary to repay them. These rituals are capricious and…

It is a time of plague. In the Doge’s palace in Venice, four nobles have been cloistered against the pestilence, each in their own chambers, admitting no one except a servant named Moroso. A representative of holy orders attends to their spiritual needs. But passions cannot be stifled, nor can the past remain hidden, and even in these dark times love will find a way... Logistics: Participants: 4 o…

We are wizards!  We can communicate with one another over great distances from the comfort of our own towers, using crystal balls.  Today, we will meet and solve the problem of how to unite the two proud nations of Black Mountain and Smallwood. Each of you has your own loyalties and agenda that you’ll strive to uphold. How you do it is up to you...but there is one hitch. Wizard decorum forbids …

Someone has stolen a pig. As a sophisticated traveler you may find this crisis laughable, but for these poor farmers a full-grown pig will fetch the same coin as two months of hard work, and it will keep a family from starving over a hard winter. It isn’t funny to the people who lost the pig—it is a disaster. They want their pig back and they want you to find it, alive or in pieces. And they want …

You are Heroes! By some miracle you’ve returned from something that definitely counts as an adventure—at least in your own minds. Now, safely tucked into a corner booth at your favorite tavern, it’s time to tell everyone all about it. Of course the sort of people who go off on adventures are also the sort of people who lie. About everything. Logistics: Participants: Any number,  2-4 per taleTime…

Magic Circle is the name of a leafy suburban cul-de-sac where a bunch of monsters live The monsters keep a low profile but there’s always something complicating the simple life. This game is about them meeting to address neighborhood problems, both mundane and fantastic. Magic Circle is a tabletop roleplaying game designed by Jason Morningstar. Logistics: Participants: 4-8 players, one of whom lig…

When adventurers come to town, there is a simple and time-honored checklist. 1. Hide the children. 2. Get out our valuables and put them in a pile. That’s it. That’s the checklist. Then hope they take our things and don’t go looking for our children.  The alternative, of course, is to utter a word of protest, or to stupidly conceal our valuables, or to issue the slightest whiff of resistance. Th…