I signed up for a game jam (Beyond the Gates TTRPG Horror Jam), kinda on a whim this month. It was created by my good pal Matt of Coffee All Night Games. I only signed up because Matt was running it and thought it would be fun to release something alongside him and the other cool folks I saw signing up.
Almost immediately after signing up I was hit with a feeling of “what did I just do? commit myself to yet another thing… I’m probably not going to end up doing this thing…”
But walking home from drop off this morning I was struck with an idea that was both fun and easily/quickly executable. I’ve decided to do a quick Breathless game inspired by one of my favourite board games (Elder Sign). I’ve made a Breathless game before and it’s one of my favourite lightweight systems.
Below you’ll find Gatekeepers, which is pretty close to finished. I’ll be releasing the ashcan on itch for free. If I find enough time to do a fancy one, then I’ll make that and put it on sale there.
This took up my TTRPG time for the week, so all the other stuff is getting stuck with the “no progress” tag.
Gatekeepers
(Mythos inspired Breathless game for the Beyond the Gates Jam, Ashcan here [link])
Introduction
It’s 1925. You are Gatekeepers, part of a secret society that spans the globe and is charged with sealing the gates that open, when the stars align, and spew forth unspeakable beings bent on bloodlust and destruction. Armed with eldritch tomes, ingenuity and hope, the Gatekeepers fight back abominations and seal the gates before it’s too late.
How to play
In Gatekeepers one person is the game organizer (GO) and the rest are players.
GOs guide the story and present challenges to the group. They are fans of the players. They ask questions to the players and fill the world with their answers.
Players narrate what their characters do. They make checks when things are risky and give everyone time to shine. They fill the world with their ideas, take risks and rise up from failures.
Your Character
On your character sheet, write down your character’s name and pronouns and anything else interesting about them.
Your Mythos skill is always set at d6.
By default, all other skills have a d4 rating. Assign a d10, a d8 and a d6 to three skills you think your character is good at.
Characters have a total of 6 skills:
Strength (fighting, climbing, forcing, breaking)
Speed (fighting, climbing, running, dodging)
Stealth (sneaking, hiding, disguising)
Aim (shooting, throwing)
Think (perceiving, analyzing, creating)
Mythos (using language, knowledge or objects from beyond the gates)
Checks
When there’s a challenge that needs to be overcome, a player makes a check to see how it plays out. Checks only happen when a player’s character (PC) is doing something risky.
The GO telegraphs the risk of the action, then the player picks a skill and rolls the die that matches its rating. If an ally helps the player, they may also make a check, but they share the same risks as the player being aided. The highest die roll determines what happens next.
On a 1-2, the player/s fail and something wrong happens.
On a 3-4, the player/s succeed, but at a cost.
On a 5+, the player/s succeed. The higher the result, the better the effect.
When you use the Mythos skill you double the result of the highest die. Whenever you roll a Mythos check the rating for all your other skills reduces by one level.
The GO can disclaim decision-making by testing for luck. To do so, pick a die rating simply based on the odds of a thing happening, roll, and interpret the results.
Despair
When you face a consequence as a result of one of your actions, the GO can decide you take 1 despair. If your character reaches 4 despair, they become “vulnerable”.
When vulnerable, failing a dangerous action could mean being taken out —or— sudden death. You can lay low somewhere secure to clear 1 despair.
Hope
To reset all your skills to their original rating, and reduce all your despair, you can “surrender to hope”. This is a brief break in the tension. It can be done at any time, even during combat. Players can trigger these effects on other players by taking the time to “inspire hope”. The GO should ask players for details about how their PCs accomplish these tasks.
When a character uses hope, the GO looks at the scene and introduces a new complication to the group.
Tomes
PCs are never without tomes, bulky books filled with information on all things wyrd and eldritch. When fiction allows it, players may have their characters scour through their tomes. However, they should be careful of what is lurking in those pages.
When a character performs a tome check, roll a d20.
On a 1, something terrible happens.
On a 2-14, they fail to find a spell.
On a 15-16, they find a d10 spell.
On a 17-18, they find a d12 spell.
On a 19-20 they find a d20 spell.
What a spell does is up to the players. When you cast a spell, roll the dice rating and apply the same interpretation that is used for skill checks. Casting spells reduces all skill ratings, other than Mythos, by one level. Once a PC obtains a spell from a tome they must use that spell before they can obtain another spell.
Brilliance
Gatekeepers are impressive and resourceful people. A PC can describe something brilliant and use a d12 instead of a skill rating to perform a check. Once they use this, they will need to use hope before they can use it again.
Items
Items can be used instead of skills to perform checks. The GO will tell the players what dice level a given item has (based on its potency and/or durability) . The item’s dice level reduces each time it is used. After an item is used with a d4 it becomes either broken, lost or irrelevant.
Items are always available in a given environment. It takes time and effort to find them, though.
PCs can carry up to three items at once.
The Gameplay Loop
Gatekeepers is designed to be played as such:
The GO briefs the players on a gate that has opened somewhere on the planet. Players describe how they gear up and travel to the gate (The Gatekeepers organization has the resources to get them anywhere and equip them with almost anything). Players arrive at the gate as monstrosities and abominations begin spewing out and causing chaos. This section of the game loop is intended to be quick, lasting 10 or 15 minutes.
PCs attempt to battle adversaries, mitigate damage and – most importantly – seal the gate. Adversaries don’t just come from beyond the gates. The world is filled with cults who want nothing more than the total destruction of our world. They flock to these gates to worship what spews forth. They loathe Gatekeepers. This section of the game loop is intended to take up the majority of time during a given game session. It ends when either a gate is sealed (and whatever invaders are destroyed) or when the PCs have all died or fled from the scene. If a gate is left unsealed it will swell in size until it is large enough for an elder god to cross through it. Once that happens, the world is destroyed.
If the world remains standing the final part of the game loop has PCs licking their wounds and traveling back to HQ for a debrief. This section of the game loop is also intended to be quick, lasting again 10 or 15 minutes.
How to Seal a Gate
Gates open on our planet when the stars align. The Gatekeepers’ organization has studied gates for centuries and have learned that they can only be sealed when a special and unique sigil is marked before the precipice of said gate. Gatekeepers are trained to intuit the correct sigil based on how the gate, and whatever comes out of it, appears and behaves.
During phase two PCs are constantly concerned with the gate and the chaos that surrounds it. They use that information to decipher the potential sigil they must create to form a seal.
Players can seal gates with their dice results rolled throughout phase two of the gameplay loop. The results they need to seal the gate are determined during phase one.
During phase one of the gameplay loop the GO rolls 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and 1d20 and records the individual results. They then share the sequence of six numbers with the players. In the fiction these numbers represent the arcane and metaphysical geometry required to design a sigil that, when painted in front of the open gate, creates a permanent seal.
For example, a GO may roll the following sequence of numbers: 2, 1, 4, 6, 4, 16.
A gate is sealed when each number in a sequence has been cleared. Numbers must be cleared in the sequence in which they were rolled. In our example this means that players must clear the number 2, which appears at the beginning of the sequence (the result of the GO’s d4 roll) before they can clear the next one (a 1, resulting from the GO’s d6 roll) and so forth. When the final number is cleared (a 16 in our example) the PCs collectively have all the information they need to paint the sigil and seal the gate.
If the result of a skill check equals the result needed to clear a number from the sequence a player may choose to either use that dice result to complete their skill check or to clear a number from the sequence. If they clear a number from the sequence they take a 1 as the result of their skill check (since their PC was distracted by their sudden strike of intuition). Players can also directly target the gate and attempt to roll a needed number using their Mythos skill or any spell they have access to. PCs who are focussed on the gate are likely to be the prime target for who and whatever wants the gate to remain open.
The various angles and strokes that form these sigils have all been named and catalogued by Gatekeepers of yore. When a Gatekeeper deciphers part of the sigil, it is customary to call it out for their comrades. During battle Gatekeepers are often heard to call out names such as “The wings of Azael” or “Moon setting over Fhancyll.”
Even after they know what the sigil looks like the PCs must still physically mark the sigil in front of the gate.
Steam Thieves
(Steampunk x Forged in the Dark, Ashcan here [link])
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No progress.
Goodnight Maus
(Mausritter adventure site inspired by Goodnight Moon)
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Trinakum
(Original design - 3d6 dice pool/grid-based/combat simulator with Iron Age Celtic/Gaulish flavour, Ashcan here [link])
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Note: Need to put this into a Scrivener doc, too.
Sand & Stars
(Desert survival x Cairn, Ashcan here [link])
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WAKE
(Completed Breathless game inspired by Control, Inception and The Matrix, Game Page here [link])
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No progress.