Yesterday was our second time playing He Who Fights With Monsters, the dungeon crawling game where the PCs are medieval warriors battling the forces of hell.

We spent a lot of time yesterday working on and testing out new Virtues (which are basically equivalent to feats in D&D: little abilities you assign to your character that manipulate/change the rules in your favor).  We also spent time working on and testing out different types of demons and what their powers and abilities might be.

It wasn’t really much of a playstorm since the current set of rules seems to be working pretty well (as evidenced by the fact that we had loads of fun playing).

I think the next step for this game is to write up a rules document (which I will post on this site for everyone to see!) and start playing with different groups of people.  In other words, I think this game is done being playstormed and now it’s ready for  some casual playtesting.  Exciting!

So I had an idea for a game. The gameplay will be tactical dungeon crawling, somewhere between a boardgame and a roleplaying game. The twist is that you’re not fantasy characters battling fantasy monsters, but Christian warriors in medieval times battling back the minions of hell who are spilling over into our world. Even greater than the risk of getting killed is the risk of being corrupted by the horror you face. PCs are constantly given the choice to risk gaining corruption in order to be more powerful. More power means a better chance of survival, but too much corruption and your character is hopelessly lost to the powers of evil!

Here is some cheesy flavor text I wrote up:

Anno Domini 1000. It is almost one hundred years before Pope Urban II will declare bellum sancrum against the infidel in the east, but even now a holy war rages. It is a war more dreadful and more secret than the crusades will be. For it is a war against the devil himself. In dark catacombs, demons try to make footholds in Europe. Holy warriors must hold them back and close their gates so that no more can come. But there is more to fear than claws and fire and gnashing teeth. The greatest weapon that Satan wields is the anger and pride in every man’s heart. For, in the midst of savage and terrible battle, these can corrupt men’s souls and turn them into the very evil they have been sent to do battle with.

The game is called “He Who Fights With Monsters” and, in the spirit of playstorming, I wanted to get it to the table and see how my ideas worked. And that’s just what we did yesterday!

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