Hello friends. Last time around, I discussed playing Hutt Cartel and asked about uses for dice beyond rolling them. This time I’ll share about running Apocalypse Keys and share some of the most exciting dice uses you all highlighted for me.
Ran: Apocalypse Keys
Apocalypse Keys is a Hellboy-inspired, Powered by the Apocalypse game of monstrous agents fighting back against the darkness and wrestling with their big, dramatic emotions. It is the creation of Jamila Nedjani (SwordQueenGames) and being developed for publication by Evil Hat. I got to run a series using Evil Hat’s playtest materials. It was a lot of fun! You can check out videos for all four sessions here.
Highlights: I really enjoyed the team of wild D.I.V.I.S.I.O.N. agents my players came up with: a reptillian bruiser Summoned from the fae realm, a former cult-member/sacrificial-victim Surge, a Shade whose undeath resulted from an experimental art piece, and a Fallen Odin who moonlights as a pitcher for the Mets!
I created my own Mysteries for this run. Jammi’s advice served me well on this front. You can check out the first of the Mysteries here, an investigation into supernatural murders committed around the Egyptian obelisk in Central Park (Cleopatra’s Needle). The Mystery is designed as a simple on-ramp for a series of Apocalypse Keys.
Of course, the Mystery has no canonical solution! Following the inspiration of Brindlewood Bay, Apocalypse Keys asks players to formulate their own theories (incorporating the Keys they picked up along the way), then roll to see if they are right or disastrously wrong.
Musings: This lack of canon might be tricky for some tables to adjust to. I know I found myself developing my own pet theories during the series, then being surprised as players went in really different directions.
The emergent solution mechanic, however, led to one of my favorite moments in the series. The player of the Fallen (formerly the god Odin, now going by Biff Brown) and I had independently chosen pictures of Jeff Bridges to illustrate characters in the series: he had picked one image of Bridges for his Fallen, and I had picked another for the NPC head honcho of D.I.V.I.S.I.O.N., Director Nagel. We decided to roll with it: Biff and Director Nagel looked nigh-identical for unclear reasons.
The reasons were clarified when the player revealed that Director Nagel was a homunculus made of light and under Biff’s control. Then, in the resolution to the second Mystery of the series, the players theorized that the Nagel homunculus had broken free from Biff’s sway to enact a sinister plan of his own. The dice declared that they were right! Biff ended up having to confront the truth about what parts of himself he’d put into Nagel to stop the ersatz director. It was a highly dramatic conclusion that would not have arisen without Apocalypse Keys’ mechanics of Grasping Keys and Unlocking Doom’s Door.
Final Thoughts: Back in April 2020, I took part in one of the very first playtests for Apocalypse Keys. I’m thrilled to see how it has grown and evolved since then. If you’re intrigued by the game, follow Jammi and Evil Hat to make sure you hear when it becomes available!
Design Discussion: Dice Uses Beyond Rolling, Part 2
Last time I posed a question: What else can we do with dice beyond rolling? The discussion that ensued on Twitter and on the Gauntlet Forum was fascinating. I’ll highlight a few standout examples here. But the full Twitter and Forum threads are worth investigating if you like the topic.
Hell for Leather sounds like it’s more graphically bloody than my own taste runs (DriveThru description: “a darkly gory game of pursuit and savage violence… play as contestants on the world's bloodiest gameshow and struggle for gruesome survival!”). But the central mechanic is stellar: in the center is a teetering tower of d6s, and then players throw d10s into the central circle, aiming to land near the tower but not knock it down!
Several replies highlighted games or game supplements where you drop dice onto a piece of paper or playmat to map out something: a village, a dungeon, a spaceship… Sometimes the dice values mattered, sometimes only their type and position. Dungeon Trappings is one example, where you use d6s with pips to create dungeon floorplans: the pips represent rooms, and then you add in lines connecting them to create corridors and passageways.
Nick Wedig highlighted the way game Cobwebs using dice drops on a special sheet to set scenes. “When you want to have a certain kind of scene, you can drop dice very carefully where you want it to occur. But if you’re open to a variety of scenes, you can drop from higher, with less control, and let the dice decide.” I really like that this adds in a conspiratorial angle to scene-framing in a game about unraveling conspiracies. Did my fellow player intentionally drop the dice there? Or am I seeing patterns here where they don’t exist?
Last one I want to call out: dice are used (among other things) as “talking sticks” in Swords Without Master and Dogs in the Vineyard. Putting your hand out with dice in it is a cue to the table: I have something to say now. Sometimes there are rules about what can or cannot happen in fiction when someone holds their dice in a particular way. This is great around a physical table, but (like a number of these alternate dice uses) much harder to pull off for an online game, or to replicate in a virtual die-roller. I guess hard dice die hard, huh?
Let me know if there are other topics you’d like us to dive into in these design discussions!
Elsewhere
—On Saturday, July 17th, I am running my scoundrels on spaceships PbtA game Plutonian Shore at an online Community Play Day hosted by Magpie Games. The day of games is free and open to anyone who agrees to Magpie’s code of conduct. As of right now, I believe there is one open slot left. Join Magpie’s Discord and go to the cpd-sign-ups channel to be part of the one-shot!
—Before that, on Saturday, July 10th, I’m having a few friends over for a second SargeCon: a house convention dedicated to playing games of my design. (The previous SargeCon was the last in-person gaming gathering I got to do pre-pandemic.) If you want in on the fun, run a Cloven Pine game on July 10th and let me know by tweeting @ClovenPineGames. I’ll enter any pop-up SargeCon participants in a raffle for some Cloven Pine Games swag.
—My game Secret Science Sewer Siblings is featured on TTRPGkids, a site collecting tabletop RPGs that are accessible to young gamers. Check out their list here.
—My game For This Ungrateful City, a Descended from the Queen game about superheroes and their tense relationship with the city they’re supposed to protect, was played on a stream by Time2Tabletop. Check out their steampunk take on this superhero storygame.
Till next time, may you grasp the keys you seek, have the dice fall in your favor, and find chances to celebrate safely in person.
Gamefully Yours,
Alexi