Keeping Yellow King PCs Alive

Playtest reports for The Yellow King Roleplaying Game gave me one consistent message:

This game is way too deadly!

Accordingly, I made it less so, lowering Difficulty Numbers for tests to avoid Shocks and Injuries. I added the more forgiving Occult Adventure mode, where it takes 4 Shock or 4 Injury cards to take a character out of play.

This is the mode I would recommend for series play. Though it leaves you with a stable cast of protagonists it can still lead to a sudden demise or two.

The originally unforgiving mode, Horror, suits for one-shots and convention play, where many players enjoy bleak, genre-accurate conclusions where key characters die. Use it for a series when you want to occasionally kill off characters.

You might vary this choice by sequence. It makes logical and thematic sense to play The Wars as a meatgrinder even if Paris protected the characters more.

Whatever your mode and desired death rate, you may still want to maintain some control, or at least influence, over the timing of PC demises. Try to confine dramatic dooms to appropriate situations. Losing a character in a compelling manner can give the player an all-time favorite gaming anecdote. Having one offhandedly bite the dust in a minor or transitional scene can annoy an entire group.

Stave this gratuitous-seeming deaths with four simple tricks:

Know character’s card totals: In your rough notes track which PCs are one card shy of leaving play. Look for ways to direct the horror and destruction at the less scathed ones. This is easy to forget in the heat of the moment. Make a habit of noting whenever cards are taken or discarded.

Pare the number of tests: You’ll lose characters quickly if you ask for multiple Composure tests per scene. Whether you’re improvising or using a published scenario, consider sticking with the nastiest mind-shattering event and dropping the minor tests that lead up to it. The weird stuff can still happen; just leave out the test.

Allow refreshes: If the PCs have run out of crucial defensive pools with a lot of story to go, throw in a chance to refresh them. Keep the tension up by exacting some other price for the refresh, like a concession or debt to a running foe.

Watch out for heavy hitters: A select few cards count doubly toward character demise. Introduce them only in situations where this plays as fitting. Give players in-story heads up that extra deadly cards might be coming, and a possible way of minimizing the threat. It’s one thing to have a character knowingly go in to defuse a bomb, another to suffer surprise obliteration when the explosion comes out of nowhere.

The Yellow King Roleplaying Game takes you on a brain-bending spiral through multiple selves and timelines, pitting characters against the reality-altering horror of The King in Yellow. When read, this suppressed play invites madness, and remolds our world into a colony of the alien planet Carcosa. Four core books, served up together in a beautiful slipcase, confront layers with an epic journey into horror in four alternate-reality settings: Belle Epoque Paris, The Wars, Aftermath, and This Is Normal Now. Purchase The Yellow King Roleplaying Game in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.