Minus Spiral

     A Minus Spiral is the downward corkscrew water makes as it goes down a drain. It is a self-reinforcing vortex of mistakes a person traps themself into the trajectory of. It is one's life going down the tubes.

     It is also a tabletop role playing game for 2 to 5 players.

     A complete game takes 2 to 4 hours, telling a complete story in a single session. The rules are simple and easy to explain to new players, even if they lack prior experience with tabletop RPGs. There are no dice and no game master role, but plenty of built-in scenarios: each scenario describes a goal each player wants (the throne, a love interest, a priceless diamond) with enough props and set dressing to let them all put on a good show of fighting for it.

     The central rule is this: all meaningful actions inherently fail no matter what. Characters lack ability scores or special feats, but rather are defined by their Problem, the thing holding them back from success. They do not gain experience points, they gain "Pathos", quantified units of absorbed suffering.

     You may ask yourself why you would want to play such a dismal game, but the truth is it is not so dismal as you might expect. Minus Spiral is not a tragedy, it is a comedy of errors. A high Pathos score at the end of the game buys you a happy ending in spite of everything, and if you play along with the premise, a high score is not so hard to achieve. The game has more justice built into it than the real world.

     So relax, and let yourself get sucked down into the spiral. Join us on Discord for this and other games. 

https://discord.com/invite/SYcT3dT