Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder and Starfinder are highly tactical, complex tabletop role-playing games that typically require plenty of preparation and shine in campaign play. The publisher’s new horror game, 13 Omens, will be entirely different: a rules-light atmospheric horror game designed for one-shots. Ahead of the game’s debut at Gen Con, designers Jason Bulmahn and Joe Pasini spoke to Polygon for an exclusive preview.
“13 Omens is almost meant to be a study in contrast from Pathfinder,” Bulmahn said. “We’ve designed the game to be something you can literally sit down, make a character, and play within minutes, and that’s from not knowing the game at all.”
Jason Bulmahn was one of the authors of the 2016 Pathfinder book Horror Adventures, but he admits Paizo’s core games aren’t designed for horror stories.
“Horror games lend themselves more to a lighter game experience,” he said. “You want the game to kind of sink below the surface of the narrative so that you can really focus on the story, because I think the moment you have to break out a book and look up something on a table, you’re going to have a hard time maintaining the tension and keeping the narrative suspense going.”
Instead, 13 Omens makes the mechanics part of the creeping dread. Everyone uses a communal bag for their dice rolls, which starts with eight six-sided dice. When a player wants their character to do something challenging, like climb a tree or pry open a door, they reach into the bag and pull out two dice to roll. Those initial dice are safe, but as the game goes on the game master – dubbed the Host – will add a total of 13 Omen dice to the bag. Roll poorly on one of these dice and along with failing the check your character could get hurt — or even die.
Characters in 13 Omens are regular people living in the modern world encountering some form of supernatural horror, like a ghost or demon. There are 13 different stories in development right now that provide a three-act structure for Hosts to run their players through an escalating scenario, like a haunted house or a psycho killer on the loose at a summer camp. The narratives start with a prologue to provide some context, which could be set five minutes before the game starts or 100 years in the past. They also provide guidance to connect the player characters and get them invested in the story, which can mean everyone is playing siblings or strangers on a tour that’s about to go very wrong.
“The first act is just goofing off, role-playing, getting to know each other, getting comfortable with what the story is about, and starting to see hints of what’s coming,” Pasini said. “In the second act, bad things are happening. The third act is when the most dice are added to the bag. That’s when things are really escalating, and you’re just trying to survive, and people are dropping like flies.”
Each character has a total of 10 aspects. Five are general qualities like Perception and Fight and five are specifically designed for the scenario. Many of these are predetermined by what Archetype you’re playing, which could be a Jock or Band Geek at the summer camp scenario, or members of a family in a haunted house. Players only have to make a few quick choices, ranking the strength of their aspects and picking gear and perks. These can give characters an edge — the ability to pick a third die out of the bag and roll all three and take the best two rolls. They might also have a flaw which forces them to draw three dice and accept the two worst outcomes.
More Omen dice are added to the bag with every act, and they become even more dangerous as the game goes on. Rolling a one is the only thing that can kill you during the first act, but a three can be just as deadly in the third act. If a player gets extremely unlucky early, the Host can allow them to cheat death.
“It’s like Final Destination,” Pasini said. “You were supposed to die and you’re going to die, but it’s going to be at a more dramatic moment than you tripped and fell down the stairs investigating the haunted house.”
While 13 Omens will include maps to give players a better idea of the areas they’re exploring, this isn’t a tactical miniatures game like Pathfinder. Instead, each act is divided into scenes which could be triggered by visiting a specific location or a certain amount of time passing. The stories suggest ways the Host can move the action along based on how characters are approaching the scenario rather than creating a checklist of events that have to happen. The change in acts involves a dramatic escalation like the killer revealing himself or a meteorite falling into a nearby cornfield.
This is a game of attrition. It’s a game of survival. It’s a game of desperation.
“At the end of each story are two endings: one if anybody survives, and one if everyone dies,” Pasini said. “Either way, that evil is still around. There’s still going to be the hand coming out of the ground, even if the final girl makes it.”
The rulebook will offer suggestions for crafting your own stories and cover the possibility of running sequels with a mix of survivors and new characters. But even if you’re turning the game into a campaign, there won’t be any leveling up between sessions.
“Horror stories aren’t the same sort of power fantasy that you see with most other role-playing games,” Bulmahn said. “This is a game of attrition. It’s a game of survival. It’s a game of desperation, and to make that feel right, you can’t get more powerful as the story goes on. You have to get more desperate as the story goes on.”
