itch.io

Thanks for checking it out!

Aw, thanks! :)

Hm, the main tricky bit with adding a 5th player is how the 4 card suits get used for dividing up narration rights between players. A 5th player wouldn’t be able to have sole authority over a suit.

I've been thinking about a way around that, and one idea that might work would be to have the 5th player take the role of a “Spirit,” along the lines of a eudaemon from Greek mythology. Here's how I could see that working:

The Spirit can add incidental detail to any scene, and whisper advice & opinions to the Protagonist/primary player. When a new set of 3 tiles are laid out, the Spirit can pick one to save (or to swap for their saved tile) *before* the primary player makes any choices or saves any tile. The Spirit can offer their saved tile to the player just like the Fates can. If the primary player does choose the Spirit’s tile, the Spirit gets to narrate it as if they had authority over that tile’s suit.

Whoever plays the Spirit might also get first dibs on being the primary player next, if they end up having less to do while playing as the Spirit.

If you end up trying that out, let me know how it goes!

Since the game is prompt-driven, the main thing that will affect the length of a game is how much time is spent narrating & playing each scene. My experience has been that scenes tend to go longer as the number of players goes up. For a solo player, I'd say an hour or less is typical; for groups, two hours, or maybe as long as three.

I have! It's def on my list to check out; I'm a fan of that type of RPG tool for sure.

Agreed! It really helps pin down the role the random table is playing — another way to “disclaim decision-making,” to quote a PbtA concept. There’s some great oracles online for In A Wicked Age too, which is the game where I first saw the term used this way. 

Three analog RPG zines:

• https://nthdegree.itch.io/forking-paths-1-guidebook-viridian-maw
• https://nthdegree.itch.io/forking-paths-2-lost-in-dark-halls
• https://nthdegree.itch.io/out-from-the-shadows-forking-paths-3

Thanks Emojk! I totally agree about Labyrinthine being flexible to adapt other concepts & settings. I've uploaded a (very basic) blank set of maze tiles as a free PDF, for one way to customize the game. If any other assets would be useful for folks wanting to make their own maze tiles, or other stuff for a hack, let me know!