Beyond Cataclysm Games bought every d13 in the world for a solo RPG

Lucky For None is a comedy-horror solo RPG from micro-publisher Beyond Cataclysm Games.

Designed by CM Lowry, the game is set in the village of Grimhaven, where dark, strange and awful things are happening. A d13 roll can kill your character on the first turn.

At Tabletop Scotland, I talked briefly to Dave Emmerson of Beyond Cataclysm and CM Lowry, who told me about buying the required volume of d13s after the Kickstarter for the 20-page game.

First, said Dave, they bought up all the d13s in Europe and then had to go further afield to acquire enough dice. Beyond Cataclysm Games got to the point where they believed they had bought every spare d13 in the world.

Of course, dice manufacturers have likely made more since then, but even today, buying a copy of Lucky For None is one of the easiest ways to get your gamer mits on a d13.

The d13 roll powers the whole game, and there are 13 rows on the Character Table, the Village Problem Table, Events, Action and other tables in the RPG.

Is a high roll on the dice good? Yep. Is a roll of 13 unlucky? Yep. For example, the Action Table grants characters Absolute success on a roll of 11 or 12, whereas a roll of 13 is both an Absolute success and a roll on The Bad Things Table. If you want to survive the game, you do not want to roll on The Bad Things Table.

How does a d13 work?

The d13 has more than 13 sides and blanks, but the blank sides are convex.

Someone more intelligent than this blogger will be able to comment on the physics and maths of the randomness of the approach, but I can attest the convex sides stop the blanks from ever facing upwards.

Or, it’s magic.