RAT KING
A downloadable game
A normal town, a peaceful life, the American Dream. All that anyone would want. And yet, at the fringes of your life, something dwells just beyond your perception...
RAT KING is a rules-light tabletop RPG about a band of townspeople investigating a strange mystery within their otherwise quite-ordinary 1950s hometown.
The PDF includes the rules of the game, a series of tables for players to use to generate their townspeople, and four mysteries for a GM to use. Each mystery includes initial hooks to begin the mystery, possible secrets to uncover along the way, and bizarre, paranormal consequences to unleash as the investigation draws closer to the Truth.
RAT KING requires one GM and 1–4 players; it's built primarily for oneshots and short-form play.
Written & designed by Beau McGhee, Kaitlin Walker, and Sam Sorensen.
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Just an update! I ran this for my tabletop night and it went really well. My players loved the setting and their characters. The investigations went incredibly well and they drove themselves quite easily with the prompts given. They would like to play again in the future with the remaining mysteries.
Awesome! So glad to hear it went well
I'm running this at my next tabletop night! This is the first time I've done something so free-form. Should discontent be given for both clues and secrets? How would you suggest going about consequences? I'm not sure when would be a good time to start them up. Thanks for the guidance!
This is just how I like to run, but I only give Discontent for clues (and clue-level-type secrets) only when it clicks for the players. Like, if you offhandedly mention, "oh, yeah, the football team has no competition" and keep talking, wait for the players to investigate and examine and make the realization before their Discontent starts rising.
Consequences I like to add closer to the "finale," when players have a lot of secrets and are close to figuring the whole thing out. Think about, like, a Twilight Zone episode, of how things really start to go awry only as the protagonists get more and more involved in the problem.
But, critically, both of these are just how I, Sam, run. Other people—even my co-designers—will run the game differently. It's rules-light for a reason: do what you think is best!
Thank you! It'll definitely give me a step in the right direction.
i love this game
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