CW: Discussions of death, mortality, and grief
Today I’m covering In Death: A Roleplaying Game About The Afterlife written and designed by J. D. Trotter. In Death is a “trad” game like D&D and Pathfinder, however it stems from works by Chaosium (specifically Call of Cthulhu) and the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine. If you’ve played Call of Cthulhu, you know how parts of this game works. I say this as this game is like a bridge between “story” games and “trad” games in a way. In Death directly encourages GM’s and players to put story over optimized characters in the game. But, you’re all here for a review so let’s dive in.
YOU HAVE DIED. NO HELPING IT.
That is how In Death begins, at the end of a life a new one can start but you are not wholly you in some cases. You, in death, have become a Shade, a spirit in the world of shadows, The Dusk, between the living and those in the true afterworlds. Depending on how you died your wound either faintly glows on your skin, or you glow internally from an illness. You are cold with skin like dry clay. You are translucent. Others around you almost as opaque as the living, some almost completely transparent. You have a reason to stay in The Dusk. You have unfinished business to attend to somewhere in the world of the living or in the land you currently reside in now. You must be careful as when you are hurt enough you can’t die again; you just cease to exist. You face Oblivion.
You can speak to others in your mother tongue and they understand. Those from times long past that would have never heard your language in life speak words back you understand, but you know they aren’t speaking yours. All languages are one language in The Dusk.
All gods are real. Most are distant and prefer their own realms of which the Dusk cannot interact with, but the gods of death, the dead, and the underworld? They are closer to you and maybe, just maybe, you can earn your way to a peaceful afterlife.
Mechanics and Narrative
The key part of narrative in this game rides of characters that are different to one another but share a couple key things: a shared accident that ended their mortal lives, unfinished business with the same person, or are fighting their way to the same afterlife. These can unite what would otherwise be a very strange group of Shades. There’s also character creation questions throughout the game book itself that outlines how to make a character that fits the world that is still unique. There are also Defining Traits in the game, which Trotter writes “Each player character in In Death is given a defining trait. This is one significant aspect of themselves that underpins their entire personality and guides their decisions. This trait should be indicative not of how they were in life, but how the player thinks they will be in their Afterlife. Consider carefully the type of character you want to play, the decisions they might make, and their motivations in the Afterlife.” which then goes on to say that you can and probably should choose something suboptimal for your character to have and that it creates a much more interesting story. (Side note: if they made knuckle bones d6’s as d10’s and d%, I’d use them for this game).
One of the first ways of how In Death differs from most trad games is the usage of the d10 and d% die. Each characteristic and skill has a measure of zero to one hundred on your character sheet. If one of your skills has 50 in it, you’re aiming to meet or get under 50. The d% die gives you the tens place while the d10 gives you the ones place. You roll and if you get a 45 (40 on the d% and 5 on the d10) you complete your action as you sought to. There are exceptions where your base score may not be enough, such as when under emotional duress, and you have to aim for a lower score to succeed in an action you undertake.
There’s more working parts of this type of game, but that is something that I want to leave up to readers to explore. It can be quite crunchy and some folks may bounce off of the crunch, but maybe you stay for the roleplay and learn to love some numbers crunch. Or perhaps you love the crunch and aren’t as great at roleplay as you’d like, but the numbers game keeps you locked into what you like, and learn a trick or two about portraying a character that’s similar or different than you. In any case, there’s something to be learned.
Hauntings In The Corner Of Memory
On a more personal note, In Death as a TTRPG reminds me a bit of a Sociology of Death and Dying course I took at Kent State University. Dr. Josh Pollock, my professor, was kind and open to conversations that 20 years old’s were having about dying. Many of us had faced at least one near death experience as children and some of us (me and another girl) faced many more into adulthood.
My mom nearly died from her gallbladder several years before in 2019, and I too had my gallbladder go out the summer of 2022, before the course in Fall 2023. I learned the five stages of grief were not for grief but for dying. Doctors used to not tell terminally ill patients they were going to die until they were actively dying. They would tell family and the family were sworn to secrecy. Then, one day, a doctor decided to tell patients they were dying before they were actively doing so. Those five stages of dying: bargaining, denial, depression, anger, and acceptance, would affect me by May when my partner and good friend Ashaun passed. It was sudden. I blacked out for several months, living in twilight where nothing was quite real. I came out of it dazed and unable to eat certain foods, likely from eating only those during my blackout. But today, I’m alive. I always miss him, occasionally worse some moments, and mourn what could have been.
With all of this said, I see In Death as not only something bridging the gap between “story” and “trad” games, I believe In Death to be a game as a medium (pun intended) between the living, the dying, and mourning the dead. A game to start a conversation that is taboo that nobody really likes to talk about. It may be able to help folks come to terms with the end of life with a fictional after. I can even see this used by Dr. Pollock in his own conducting of another Death and Dying course.
While I have not run or played In Death quite yet, I do hope to soon and update my review of it here once I do. In the meantime, enjoy your stay in the world of the living.
You can buy In Death: A Roleplaying Game About The Afterlife digitally over on itch.io or Drive Thru RPG for about $13. You can buy a physical copy over on Angry Cherry for £30 GBP.
Images via Jacob-Daniel Trotter
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