Jack Harrison and Mousehole Press is a story RPG in which 2 to 4 players are the villains. And they’ve lost; the card-powered game is about telling the clever web of tricks that dishes out revenge.
The Slow Knife is inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, where a quick death was off the cards. This is a game of moving behind the scenes and extended plans. In contrast, though, The Slow Knife has got off to a flying start, with more than half the campaign goal being met in the opening hour. You can join in the interest from the project page.
Together, players in the story game create a young person who’s run afoul of the villains and then reveal the decades-long revenge tale that follows. It’s told from the point of view of the baddies and The Knife, the person reaping their justice, moves in the shadows.
The game, remarkably, uses a pinboard. An actual pinboard. To this, you add notes and detail out the sin and scandal that bring the villains down.
The Slow Knife is a roleplaying game – in that you’re playing the role of one of the villains – but it doesn’t demand much from you in terms of improvised oration or dramatic narration. Even if you’ve never played an RPG before, this game is designed to make your first experience with the hobby a great (and comfortable) one. All you need is a love of good stories and a willingness to ask curious questions. If you’re a seasoned RPG player, maybe with a long-running D&D campaign, this would be a great game to play if someone can’t turn up one week or you’re looking for a break between campaigns—simple, self-contained and zero prep. And of course if you’re already on board with playing a bunch of unique, often-strange story games, well then you know what’s good already!
At the core of the game is a 52-card deck of prompts that asks probing, establishing questions about your villainous characters and their dishonourable lives. You’ll take turns answering from this deck, building out the story of your character as you pass through the years. After resolving each card, you’ll consider the board in front of you and add cards and connections to reflect what you’ve added to the story.
The digital edition, which includes the playtests, costs £10.
The standard edition includes the digital assets but not the physical playbooks, and is presented in a boxset, is unlocked at £30.
Lastly, at £42, the Playset Edition comes with 60 cards, the A6 playbooks, plus the “Court of Arandil Playset”.
Notably, none of the reward tiers mentions a pinboard.
The Kickstarter notes the price is higher than it could be because it’s printed in an environmentally-neutral way, which is fair.
Delivery is slated for November.
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