I went back to revisit a bunch of rules and the layout for Fortune Dark, a rules-light system I wrote last year for running dark and desperate one-shot adventures.

Download it here for free.

The biggest change is that when a player Takes a Risk, they now tell the GM what they are risking if it goes wrong, and the GM counters by telling how it’s going to be worse.

I entirely ripped this from Brindlewood Bay’s Night Move because THIS RULE RULES. In my little RPG group we’ve been talking a lot about the burden that failing forward and success-with-consequences rules impose on GMs as they try to come up with interesting repercussions for every action. I appreciate the way the Night Move reduces some of that pressure. It balances the load across player and GM by involving the player more deeply in their situation and choices, and it grants players some agency in their fate plus a chance to enter into a little barter-play as they carefully choose a risk in the knowledge that the GM will make it worse. More interplay between GM and players equals more fun, yeah?

Smaller changes: Deny Fate and Purge Debility now only add cursed dice to the Fortune pool. They used to also include removing un-cursed dice, but this meant a mix of different “payments” which reduced the purity of the idea of cursing the party’s Fortune. Only adding dice also means players don’t need to delve into the bag to find un-cursed dice to discard, which reduces fiddliness and also avoids them getting an idea of how many un-cursed dice remain.

I made various little tweaks to wording, particularly doubling down on the PbtA approach to using the term “when” to trigger sets of rules. It reads so naturally while also being very technical and precise. I’m also pleased with how I’ve reordered the Fortune dice pool setup section, explaining how to do it and what it means, so a player can make informed choices as they go:

The party takes 3 dice. This is your party’s collective fortune, which your god has granted to help you claim tribute in its name. For each die in your fortune at the start of your adventure, your party must claim 1 tribute.

You and your other party members can each add up to 2 more dice to your fortune. When the pool is complete, note the total number of dice and put them in an opaque bag. You’re ready to begin — but remember:

When the party fails to claim enough tribute by the end of the adventure, your god deems your party unworthy. As a group, describe how the party meets its end.

Finally, I gave it a new design — well, different fonts — to add a bit more character. The fonts are:

• Hyper Scrypt for headers. Barely readable in the best way.
• Garabosse for body text. Grunchy-classical.
• Basteleur for incidentals. Fun-fantasy in a slightly unsettling way.

If you try Fortune Dark out let me know! Contact details below.