Blatantly inspired by Ghostbusters (and its 1980s RPG), InSpectres puts the players in charge of a franchise of paranormal investigators. Much like Fate, this game is focused primarily on collaboratively creating a story, rather than players facing challenges set by the GM, but goes further than even Fate does. While an InSpectres GM sets up the initial premise of a session, the players' actions and rolls are what really decides the plot; with enough player successes, the final story might even be the opposite of what the GM intended.

The core mechanic is that any time there's a challenge, you roll a number of six-sided dice equal to your character's rank in one of four stats (plus any relevant extra dice), then pick the highest die result from 1 to 6. You compare the result to a table: a result of 4-6 means the player determines what happens, while a result of 1-3 means the GM determines the result. Especially high results provide franchise dice (more on that later), while lower results are progressively worse for the player.

Characters start from a concept (which should be a team player with a useful skill), then get dice divided between four skills, plus a freeform "talent" that adds a die when relevant. While normal humans with normal problems are preferred, one person in a group can be a "weird" character with paranormal abilities: examples provided include vampires, ghosts, and psychics. "Weird" characters can have better stats and special powers fueled by cool points (more on that later), but can't choose talents or earn franchise dice. Players in ongoing campaigns are encouraged to have a stable of characters to rotate in while others are on vacation - this also allows different players to be the single "weird" character.

Arguably more important to the game is the franchise itself, which is built by the entire group (and ideally, managed by the players). Much like a character, the franchise has dice divided between three "cards" (providing extra dice for specific skill checks when spent) and a "bank" of dice that can spent on any check (with a chance of gaining or losing extra dice when you do). While InSpectres characters don't get mechanical improvements, franchises do; building up the franchise is a major focus of the game, with franchise dice earned during the course of a job (unless you're a "weird" character). A franchise that runs out of dice risks going under, requiring players to start a new one from scratch.

Gameplay is highly structured, resembling the structure of a TV episode. Games start with an interview that establishes the characters and tone, then proceeds through specific plot stages. The goal of a given job is to hit a certain number of franchise dice, determined by the GM - once that goal is reached, the problem is solved and the job is complete.

When characters are subjected to stress during the game, they roll stress dice (determined by the GM) and take the lowest die result - high results earn cool points, but low results subtract from your skills. The effects of stress remain until cool points are spent to remove them, or the character goes on vacation after the game (which costs franchise dice).

Characters can also interrupt any scene once with a reality TV-style "confessional" that allows them to add plot elements, or even (once per game) impose a trait on another player character. (Although they can ignore this new trait, they gain an extra franchise die for playing along.) This particular mechanic might not be for everyone, but it's certainly an interesting inclusion, and key to the egalitarian style of the game.

While the book is a pleasure to read overall, one minor quibble is the organization. The book would have benefited from an early, consolidated rundown of the rules. Important details (like how franchise dice are earned and spent) are spread around the book, which means you have to piece the rules together as you go (and risks you missing key bits on your first read). An appendix condenses the rules together in a slightly better-organized format, but it's unfortunately harder to parse.

Quibbles aside, InSpectres is a well-crafted game that could be a lot of fun, assuming you have a group that buys in and plays along. (The book advises putting pressure on players who don't get it, but that doesn't seem practical.) If you're looking for a lightweight game focused on supernatural investigators for hire, this is an excellent choice and worth checking out. (Originally posted on Goodreads)

My experience with this game was less than stellar, but that has a lot to do with my group and not much to do with the game. InSpectres requires buy-in from the entire group. If your group comes from a more traditional RPG background, as mine does, there's a shift in the roles that could cause a problem. Players need to know that they are largely responsible for building and moving the narrative along and the GM is really just there to wrangle the chaos. In our case, the players were not fully prepared to get their hands dirty, narratively speaking, and were hesitant to do so. The GM tried their best, but didn't have much to work with. It was not a smooth game.

That's on us though. InSpectres gives you everything you need to create a fun and funny experience. And I can't help but add that the Confessionals mechanic, where players take the hot seat and talk as if they were cut to in the middle of a reality tv show to change the narrative or develop characters, is a fresh and exciting mechanic that I haven't encountered elsewhere. It definitely works in the context of InSpectres and I would have loved to see it used more in our game.

Overall, it's a great game that just requires buy-in for a good time. It is also one of the few ways to experience Ghostbusters outside of running scans of the old West End Games release.

Ah, the good old IF (interactive fiction) days...Action Castle is well done and translates computer into analogue experience very well. I used this as a guide for change in bedtime reading with my daughter and had a ton of fun. Later, I tried porting this to Inform7. Such a great concept, well thought out and executed in a simple, easy to learn fashion. Set your imagination loose with Action Castle and other titles.

Something I've thought about a lot in Torchbearer is introducing unique items that have interesting benefits but require creative use. This list is brimming with items that are funny, evocative, and insidious. Many of the more powerful items exact a price for their use, or cause complications that drive the action forward rather than neatly solving problems for the player. Looking forward to weaving lots o' this loot into my campaign.

The more I explain about LACUNA, the less fun it is to discover over time/while GMing/while playing, so I'm going to very much shy heavily away from describing the actual content of the game besides maybe what a player would need to know on their first time creating a character. If you want a description of it without giving that much away, though, I've heard it compared to a lot of things - my personal assessment is that it's a sort of Matrix/SCP Foundation kind of tabletop, but I've also heard comparisons to Paranoia and Inception (neither of these I can judge, since I haven't experienced either), and one could maybe argue that it's got a bit of the whole Persona 5 Phantom Thieves thing going on? That's as specific as I'm going to get about plot.

LACUNA is - hands-down - my favorite tabletop to run, and also basically my default when I want to run anything. It's got a somewhat specific setting, of course, but within the boundraries of that setting you can do so many things. I've played a game of it that leaned heavily on the surreal aspects, run a few sessions where the missions were simple but it was player interaction that provided the conflicts, listened to actual play sessions that shaped up more as psychological horror than as suspense, read threads that turned the main conflict into inner-Company bureaucratic hell - heck, I'm currently running it as more of an action-supernatural game right now. Once you adapt to the way the system works, it's surprising what you can manage.

I would, however, advise against starting LACUNA with a rigid plot in mind - it's a lot better to point the players at an eventual goal for a mission and see what type of shenanigans organically arise on the way to that objective. It's difficult - really, really difficult - to railroad your players in this game, because inevitably one of them will end up rolling and rerolling over and over to try and get a skateboard, and you'll have to adapt to that scenario. Plus, almost every aspect of character creation besides the basic stats is completely randomized.

Mechanics-wise, this game is pretty simple - characters have 3 stats, they can start out balanced (3 points in each stat) or skew themselves a bit (2 in one stat, 3 in another, 4 in the other). They roll as many d6s as they have points in that stat for a challenge, and if they meet an 11 or higher than they've succeeded at doing whatever that was. Pass or fail, that number gets added to their heart rate - and while they can choose to reroll, the new roll is also going to get added on.

The heart rate mechanic is one of two things that the GM should be paying attention to, as it determines the flow of play. Have a player below target heart rate? They'll probably be trying to make some rolls to get up to that target, since that range will allow them to roll as many dice as they like for the challenge. If they're in their target range, they might start conserving rolls for important things so they can be guaranteed to succeed - and if they reach maximum or above, the GM's going to have to drop the hammer and start really making faliures have consequences. The whole thing flows pretty naturally - while I personally cobbled together a quick resting mechanic for longer missions, it definitely also works without ourside interference.

I'm not sure what else to say about LACUNA - again, the less said, the better. If you're looking for a campaign to run that's going to leave a lasting impact on your players, if you have some imagery you want to work into a game but you have no idea how, I'd strongly suggest picking this up from one GM to another; and if you're someone who'd rather play this and not run it, send this to your GM of choice without further comment. It's a great game!

...What? You want to know about the other mechanic the GM needs to pay attention to? Sorry, Agent, that's above your clearance level.

Beautiful deisgn work coupled with one of the most interesting concepts for a game I've ever come across. Never had a bad time with it, the rules are exactly as meaty as I like, and its quick to get to the table.

Lacuna is a wonderful rules-lite rpg of surreal horror/mystery. It is a little difficult to classify as the game is only about half-done in terms of rules, and the rest is all left up to the GM to complete. No two games of Lacuna are ever played alike between different groups.

The game's setting is Blue City, a manifestation of Jung's collective unconscious, though most people will just think of it as the dream world of Inception or the digital world of The Matrix. Sometimes it gets as freaky as InterZone from the movie Naked Lunch, it all depends on your game. Players are agents for The Company and dive into Blue City to extract hostile personalities from within the dream world. Settings are generally the first thing I change when playing a new game, but this setting is vague enough that any changes you make are still as canon as any changes anyone else has made.

At its core, the main mechanic for Lacuna is your heart rate. This is a fantastic system that paces the game very, very well. Everytime you make a roll in Blue City, your heart rate increases. The more stress you undergo while in Blue City, the higher your bpm gets, and the more risky your further actions become. Once you reach your maximum threshold, you must eject from Blue City or suffer a heart attack and die. Instead of taking damage to health from risky activities, you take damage to your abilities. It is worth noting that since every roll you make is added to your bpm, rolling high is actually unfavorable in this game. You want to get as close to your target number (11) as possible without going too much over.

While the vagueness of the setting is a positive in my eyes, the incompleteness of the rest of the rules can be seen as a negative. The book only really gives rules for things the player characters can do. While it includes hints of the "bad guys" (see the spiderman in the Soviet uniform on the cover), it never details how a combat would turn out or how to resolve such things. Some see this as a positive. I have personally seen two GMs play it very different ways, one required multiple successes to accomplish difficult tasks to take down the "boss" of the scenario, and the second concluded that one success was enough, preferring to emphasis surrealism and investigation over conflict and dice-rolling. Under the rules as written, both are equally right and wrong, as it is never written in the first place.

On the nature of the pdf as a product, it is underwhelming. The front cover is missing, and the first page of the pdf opens onto the copyright page. I really like the cover image and was disappointed when it was missing from the pdf. There is no table of contents, so while the pdf is only 62 pages, if you want to quickly get to the npc mentor page quickly, you have to scroll through until you find it. Since the book is short, it is more an annoyance than a pain, but a ToC would be nice to have.

One final note: the character sheet is one of the most unique and creative examples I have seen. The combination of scantron and medical document really set the stage of being a faceless employee of a shadowy corporation/government agency. I've seen other players' eyes go wide when they see it for the first time.

...I downloaded the PDF from DriveThruRpg and started reading. And didn't stop until I finished the last page. (It's not a large book, but I don't tend to suck down RPG manuals in one sitting.) My powers of Google were activated and I read everything I could find. I even watched a three hour actual play (that didn't do the game justice).

I was obsessed. It happens.

Why the trip down the rabbit hole? This RPG provides a dark, surreal setting where the players are Mystery Agents diving into the collective unconscious to dispatch Hostile Personalities to the Lacuna. Criminals are then "cured" of their "criminal disease" in order to provide "a better, safer world."

That right there is enough to provide a couple of fun gaming sessions. But the very long sub-title promises the creation of a mystery. And it definitely keeps its promise...

...Lacuna Part 1 (second attempt) provides a rich, intriguing, completely screwed up setting. It gives you an easy to grasp system with tension builders ready to go. It introduces you to an organization with an "interesting" history. It proposes a lot of questions. Some have answers, some have strong hints, and some are seemingly unanswered.

There is a lot there. But it does leave a lot to the GM. It's been called a "Rorschach for the GM" by many, many (MANY) people in the forums and posts I devoured. There's a lot to play with but it doesn't hold your hand or provide you with a sample scenario. You can run it as a quick one shot without a lot of prep. Or you can obsess like me, watch movies, read old actual play posts, read the book again, try to grasp what you think is going on- and then plan a few sessions, drop hints, seed the story, and see where your players take it. Which may be somewhere you never imagined.

Or I guess you could find some kind of middle ground between no prep and obsession. Whatever.

Bottom Line: If you're open to something different, like the surreal and the weird, and want to play monster hunting Mystery Agents diving into the collective unconscious- send your GM this link and then DO NOT research the game any further. The less the players know, the more fun the game will be for all.

If you're open to something different, like the surreal and the weird, and are comfortable running a game where you and your players are expected to create Part 2 to the Part 1 provided, this is well worth your $10. We're two sessions in and having a great time.

This is made up of sections of my full review, which can be found here: http://www.geeksplayinggames.com/2015/07/lacuna-part-1-review-or-down-rabbit-hole.html

I ran this a while back with some cousins who had never role-played before. A little ad-libbing was all it took to get this game running well and everybody seemed to have a good time. I'd definitely bring this one out again.

I haven´t played it yet, just read it a couple of times. Honestly, I think some things could be better explained. I guess they will become clear after playing it. Now, the general idea and the setting looks very promising. It´s quite different from everything else I have read or played in the last 20 years, and I´m really looking forward to try it out!

Kinda undecided on this one. It was cheap and I was intrigued but how would I enjoy DMing this? Not really - but might be cool for super light weight kinda rigid play ?

As a fan of the old 1980's text adventures (retroactively entitled Interactive Fiction, or IF), I find that Action Castle scratches the itch to play a text adventure in a group admirably. It's quick, easy, and very simple. The price matches the complexity of the game, but don't mistake its simplicity for being inelegant. The genius design elements are the way the IF is translated from a parser with definitions and one player into a group game with a Game Master (called a Parser here).

If you're looking for a quick game to entertain friends in between campaigns or a beer-and-pretzel substitution for game nights that are a wash, take a look here and at all the Parsely games out there. It's well worth $2.

In a general sense, Parsely games are pretty awesome party games. Blackboard Jungle is a great quick example of how they run. It's a little short, but it's also only 99c, while the print copy is included with Action Castle II, I think. It's a solid addition to the series, and a great demo of how quick the game can run. Thumbs up!

A grim, visceral RPG from Memento Mori Theatricks, the farm is a game about survival, leadership, and the gradual discovery of a horrible reality.

The game uses a dice pool system with an inventive twist - a group of players designate a leader at certain times during the game, and this player can roll dice for a group of players and distribute them as they see fit. It's a clever system that could easily be stripped out and reutilized in other survival-style RPGs.

the farm would be a great choice for any group looking for a one-shot horror RPG - but it is definitely not for the faint of heart. (It should be noted that the rules limit the number of players to 6, so bear this in mind before you start inviting gamers over!)

Lacuna is one of my most favourite games. It has a light and tight rule set, just the right amount to play the game and invoke the right feel and pacing. Its setting is vague enough to be very extensible, yet communicated in an effective way through text, imagery and layout to let GMs know what the key aspects and dominant themes are. Most importantly (to me), it allows for instant in-character play, through character creation to conclusion, and require no prior knowledge on part of the players. It lets play groups do high action and mission-based play while still incorporating themes of ethical and philosophical concern into the story to whatever degree you prefer, and you can easily gear it more towards humour or more towards horror as you wish (my games tend to have a roughly equal degree of both). Truly mind-blowing! Rating 4 rather than 5 stars because the PDF format itself is not taken advantage of; no bookmarks, fillable character sheet, integrated JavaScript table rollers, asset section for GM prep (generation of custom handouts of in-game documents and artifacts is common in Lacuna prep), etc. Inclusion of some of these features would easily have made the PDF version much more useful than the print book.