Desks and Dorks are a board game design podcast and a publisher. A Fear Within is one of their RPGs, and you play a child who doesn’t need to collect pocket monsters because there is a monster inside you.
These aren’t metaphorical monsters but powerful entities that want to be unleashed. The game’s second edition will be unleashed as the crowdfunding has made target and there’s about a day left to join in.
A Fear Within uses a system that tracks either the growing bond between the child PC and the monster PCs or the growing drama. Only one player is the child PC and the others play the Entity linked to their fears.
The whole game leans heavily into a Stephen King vibe.
The Partnership System also uses d8s and has the Merge Mechanic which triggers when the Entity and Child merge to become something new with powers.
The second edition introduces rules for playing as adults who have had their entities return, which is a new danger. There’s also optional rules for more danger and more mature horror themes.
There are GMs in A Fear Within, and the second edition provides more tools for dealing with the merger of Child and Entity.
Your mother always told you there were no monsters under the bed, it turns out she was right.
The monsters were inside you all along.
Now you and your friends have to work with the creatures that live within you. If you don’t, you’re going to have to deal with something much, much, worse.
At $10 backers unlock (but be quick) the Spooky Tier and are rewarded with a PDF edition of the game.
At $25 there’s a softcover reward but shipping is restricted to the United States of America. At $30, USA backers get both the PDF and softcover.
There’s a hardcover edition, sadly still geo-locked (but wisely) at $50 and there’s a limited $50, UK-only, international option too.
The campaign runs until the 30th and has an expected delivery date in March 2025.
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