The Poison Course

The Poison Course is an 80-page mystery one-shot about ordinary household staff of extraordinary substance trying to stop a Villain who's come to dinner. Designed for 3-5 players, it's playable in about four hours with your OSR system of choice or an included, compact d20-based ruleset.

Introduction

The sun sinks into the bayou, its final rays piercing the curtains of Spanish moss. Lanterns hung from ornate carriages float like will-o'-the-wisps through the mist, passing between the two tarnished bronze lions guarding the lane. A golden radiance pushes the shadows back from the front doors of the manor, thrown open to the evening. The city's elite step down delicately, their footmen folding down wooden steps or providing a sturdy arm.

A smartly-dressed house matron steps out of the doors and onto the porch, hands clasped at her waist. She smiles, offering words of admiration to the approaching lady, whose gown shimmers in the glow of the torches lining the walkway. Inside, a butler takes the gentlemens' coats before motioning through the double doors to the great hall beyond. The chef barks orders at the kitchen staff, but it's drowned out by the weeping of a musician's violin soon enough.

The fire is lit.

The wine is open.

It's time for The Poison Course.

Player characters are household staff in the manor of a businessman of small prominence. An unexpected soiree draws a small group of socialites, but danger is afoot. A Villain has come to dinner, and it's up to the PCs to foil their nefarious scheme.

A Familiar Setting with Expanded Options

To anyone who has played the board game or seen the movie, the premise will be instantly familiar. The action is confined for the most part to the first floor of the manor, and the focus is investigating in an effort to identify the Villain before he (or she) can visit harm on the characters' employer. They'll need to move from room to room, observing suspicious items therein while also keeping tabs on the guests and their comings and goings.

But as an RPG, it goes beyond the board game's "roll-move-peek-guess" limitations. Haven't you always wanted to do more than just walk around and read from a little envelope? Maybe eavesdropping on the doctor's conversation with the dilettante in crimson? Or smooth-talk motive out of the green-clad businessman? Perhaps even fisticuffs with a professor in purple as you lay your accusation on him? PCs will need to use all their wits, and maybe even their fists, to save the evening.

Minimal, Familiar Mechanics

One focus of The Poison Course's design is to be very beginner-friendly. The addition of a simple set of TTRPG rules and mechanics, along with the familiar setting, is intended to ease the learning curve for brand new players.

Compact d20 Framework

A modern, streamlined, d20-based system provides an easy-to-grasp framework to run the game, even for those brand new to tabletop RPGs. The following summarizes the main aspects of the included rules.

• Quick character creation in ten minutes or less.
• Just four Ability Scores: Strength, Mind, Dexterity, Spirit.
• Hit Points, Armor Class, and Weapon Proficiency round out our PCs' "stats."
• No complex Classes... instead, simple Backgrounds provide characters with their role, as well as a handful of benefits.
• PCs are ordinary folks (i.e. Level 0) and as a one-shot, no advancement rules are required.
• A single mechanic serves for almost all required rolls: d20 plus applicable modifiers should meet or beat a target number.

Highly Compatible

For more experienced groups, The Poison Course is easily usable with any d20-based descendant of the Original Roleplaying Game your group might favor. Since characters are Level 0, no scaling conversions should be required. With some quick and easy adjustment of Ability Scores and Armor Class, players of old- or new-school games alike should find little issue using this on the fly.

Fast, Chaotic Play

Rather than the complexities of managing combat, the emphasis of The Poison Course is on interaction and investigation. PCs will need to steal precious moments to search a side room, or keep a squirrely-looking guest away from the kitchen, all while making sure glasses are full and dinner service starts promptly at eight. The characters will come together to strategize, then split off in their different directions only to reconvene again when the house matron is looking the other way.

All the while a Chore Die mechanic can interrupt characters every few minutes of real time. Each Background has a different Chore Die, and rolling a 1 will prompt the GM to pull characters away from their current circumstances as some aspect of their duties demands their attention. This chance increases as the clock continues to tick toward the busy dinner hour, and the inevitable villainy to follow.

High Replay & Post-Play Value

Another aspect of The Poison Course is its flexibility for replay. Like its board game inspiration, you can switch things up every time you play. For example:

• Make a different guest the Villain (the release will include Motive, Method, and Clues for three at launch).
• Change the weapon of choice! In this book it is the titular poison, but rumor has it that knives, ropes, and candlesticks also make excellent tools for violence.

And if players enjoy the game, it serves as a perfect stepping-off point to a fuller campaign in the Crescent City Gothic setting. Indeed, the first playtest of this scenario kicked off a year-and-half-long campaign to answer the bigger question of why?

So bienvenue...

We hope you will join us for the evening. And we're sure you're dying to make our acquaintance. Back the campaign on Kickstarter today!

* Art by Breanna Knoth