Strigovia - a Slavic Darkfolk RPG

The people

First, the people. Michał Gołkowski, an author whose work I enjoy, and Przemysław Truściński, a graphic artist who was responsible for the concept art of the first Witcher game, are part of the team.

I know people like to talk shit about the first game: that the mechanics were clunky, that zones were laid out poorly, that the story required plenty of going back-and-forth between locations, that combat was wooden, that graphics were not good... Honestly? Fuck all that with a rusty anchor. In my opinion, the first game was a masterpiece. Suffice to say, I hold anyone who worked on the first Witcher in high esteem.

The setting

Second, the setting. I do not only mean the Slavic folklore. What got me really interested was the focus on "players versus the Forest". This is basically what I always try to do in my role-playing game adventures: there is some story, sure, but the cause of the problems or events is not just a single Big Scary Monster, but the environment and its driving forces (natural, magical, societal, or otherwise) run amok. The Forest, written with a capital letter, seems to be perfect for this.

I expect The Forest to be far greater and far more powerful than the player characters. This would mean that while the characters can try to oppose the Forest, or play against it, they will ultimately fail, and the Forest, ancient, uncaring, and ever-present, will remain no matter what.

I love it, because it creates a loop that supports different adventures without the need to create ever more elaborate stories, or ever more powerful foes. Taking the path of ever-more-whatever will lead you to the Yet Another World Ending Threat area of storytelling, which, personally, I find ridiculous. I prefer more grounded, low-power fantasy stories where the struggles are something an everyman could have experienced, instead of the tall tales of a hero returning from his journey.

The system

I saw that Strigovia is a "narrative system", and I could not care less about games like this. As soon as I see the word "narrative" used as an adjective in a role-playing game's pitch I am out. You can pry the dice from my cold, dead, roll-playing hands...

The good thing is, I can just ignore whatever rules are there to support the bullshit "narrative system" and just use the setting and campaign guide to help me create my adventures.

More information

• the main website
• the quickstart on itch.io
• Patreon page for Strigovia