I was wondering if you had recommendations for a game that evokes the vibe of like The Thing (or Among Us) from the social angle - there is something here passing itself off as human, as *one of us*, and we need to find out who it is. Maybe with hidden roles? It seems like there's a lot of interesting space to explore there.
Thank you!!
Theme: Hidden Role Games
Friend, I've got more games for you than I thought I was initially going to find, and each one is in a different setting! Enjoy!
What We Thought We Knew, by Mouse.
You play as a group of friends who have known each other for many years- at the very least since highschool, and have gone through many transitional phases with each other.
It has recently been revealed to you that someone in your friend group has not actually been there for all of these events- they have been implanted in the group for whatever reason and all your memories modified to fit them into the narrative. None of you know who it is -- not even the fake.
In order to find out who the fake is, you must experience some of your core memories together again, moving through them like you are those versions of yourselves again, to try and spot the mistakes in the memories, the distortions that don’t quite make sense in the context of everything else happening.
The hidden role in this game is as determined by the GM, and the fake will not know that they are the imposter at the beginning of the game. The setting for this game appears to be relatively agnostic, so you could make this a fantasy setting, a futuristic setting, or even a modern setting. Characters have four stats: Head, Heart, Flesh and Beyond. The game is designed off of Caltrop Core, so when you roll your dice according to stat, there’s graded successes/failures. Players will also get chances to identify a distortion, which helps the group figure out what pieces of information don’t add up. If you want a game with mystery for almost everyone a the table, you might want to check out this game.
Jackrabbit Parole, by Willow Willis.
Well, you screwed up. Whatever you did, it was bad enough to land your ass in prison. Not just your average state-of-the-art correctional institution, either. This place is Bad News.
Parole? Don’t make me laugh. This is your life now. There’s no help coming for you and your fellow unfortunates. You’ll shit, sleep, work and eat when and where they tell you to for the rest of your miserable existence. If you want out, there’s only three paths:
Execution. Suicide. Or escape.
And since the first two don’t sound too promising, all you’re left with is jackrabbit parole.
Jackrabbit Parole is a game about prison escapees, one of which is a Snitch. The exact setting of the prison is up to you - the only thing that matters is that you’re stuck here unless you find a way to get yourselves out. You’ll roll to determine what your characters’ relationships are, and draw cards determine your roles.
There are two special roles: the Ringleader and the Snitch. The Ringleader has access to everywhere in the prison; the Snitch wants to get as much information as possible and pass it on to the guards. The Snitch profits by keeping everyone here, which means that players cannot communicate openly about their plans. The game plays over three acts, so I think it’s pretty easy to contain inside a single session, and it comes with some suggested settings if you’re not sure where to start.
Conspire, by Cherry Picked Games.
Conspire is a hidden-role storytelling game. Players delve into any moment of conflict, real or fake, and populate the scene with shady figures. They secretly assign objectives to these in-world characters and shuffle the roles amongst themselves. Everyone draws a role to inhabit and acts them out, not knowing who any of the others are or what they are trying to accomplish. What follows is an intense tale of bluffing, brokering deals, and shaping the very universe to your whims.
This feels like a GM-Less game, with all of the roles and motives of each character determined according to the setting and people created by the group at the table. Each piece of the puzzle is created collaboratively, so you’ll know what’s going on with one or two people, but not the whole picture. If you want a game that gives everyone the same responsibilities and has the flexibility to fit the settings in your head, this might be the game for you.
Eulogy of a Fool, by Kate.
In Eulogy of a Fool, all players are attending the funeral of a Fool. However, the Fool is in this crowd, having faked her own death to collect on a life insurance policy. Everyone in attendance must give a eulogy while the Fool tries to blend in and everyone else is trying to single out any suspicious persons.
This game consists of a series of cards, 20 of which are Identity cards, and 30 of which are relation cards. There will only be about as many cards in play as there are players for any given game, so I think having so many options allows for a different game every time you play. Each player will also have to give a eulogy about the deceased, using information given to all non-imposters, while the Fool will have to improvise as best as they can. Looking at the instructions and prep for this game, I think this game would be very easy to learn. There’s a script for the GM to follow while running the game, and the cards make it easy to generate characters on the fly. If you want a game that’s part ttrpg, part card game, this might be the game for you.
EUREKA, by @anim-ttrpgs
Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is an original, fully fledged, 200-page 2d6 TTRPG from The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery inspired by The X-Files, Kolchak: The Nightstalker, and much more!
Eureka features investigation mechanics that let players take initiative, use their characters’ unique strengths to find clues, and deduce conclusions themselves rather than to just walking into a room and roll Investigate.
EUREKA’s main focus is on solving mysteries, but the way character creation is meant to be set up means that it is very likely that characters will have a lot of secrets, purposefully hidden from the rest of the group at game start. If you are playing a supernatural creature of some kind, your character will have plenty of reasons to keep their identity a secret. While the group is trying to solve whatever mystery there is, your characters will have to decide just how much they trust each—other, with dramatic reveals possibly prompting some thrilling and suspenseful moments. This game isn’t quite in it’s final form, but there’s a robust community currently play-testing it, and the folks behind the development are very eager to answer questions and help you get a game to the table.
Loyalty, by jackdawfactories.
You are the crew of a deep-space mining vessel who have just been awoken from stasis. You are coming in to land on a previously uncharted planet, and must investigate the nearby cave system for its utility to you - but of course, there’s more to it than that…
Loyalty is a game based on Ridley Scott’s Alien, and combines standard RPG mechanics with a hidden role aspect. Survive the horror you have unleashed while working out who - anyone - is the traitor in your midst.
This is a game in which more than one person could have a secret role. You draw a card from a regular deck of playing cards, and based on what kind of face you have, you are either an android infiltrator, or a human. Because the character creation is randomized, it’s totally possible to have an entirely human crew - but the players won’t know this, and thus the paranoia will still be present.
On top of this paranoia, you’ll be facing off against an alien, and the more you come up against it, the stronger it gets. There’s a win condition, a lose condition, and the possibility to eject a suspect out of an airlock. If you like heightened stakes and no good endings, this might be the game for you.
The Warmest Place to Hide, by Rosie.
The Warmest Place To Hide is a TTRPG homage to John Carpenter's The Thing.
It is the longest night in Antarctica, and something has made its way inside the research station at which you work. You and your teammates must work together to protect yourselves from assimilation - but when the creature can make itself look like anyone and anything, who can you really trust?
Create a base, populate it with crew, then see if you can survive an alien invasion.
This is the game for folks who want a direct re-creation of The Thing. As this is a Caltrop Core game, the rules are fairly minimal and use dice pools of d4’s. You can roll randomly for your character’s background, and choose an archetype that will give you specific skills and special abilities. You’ll also receive a random assignment of “Human” or “Something Else”. If you are Something Else, you always have to opportunity to take over any dead characters.
I’m not entirely sure how you communicate to players that they are Something Else without alerting the whole table; I’m assuming that this is the sort of game that involves passing a lot of notes. I think it might also be interesting if the GM introduces other threats that could kill players so that the Thing can approach and assimilate them without the players necessarily knowing who’s doing it.
