Darker is my setting for the Shab al-Hiri Roach: the Roach comes to Oxford University in Victorian times.

We tested it today, after Sunday lunch. There's John, Alex, Adam and me. It's a three hour session, maybe a bit more, and we're sitting in the lounge with the windows open, finishing the wine from lunch. Very pleasant.

Here's the characters:

• John plays Dr Sebastian Caine, a zoologist with an interest in parasites. Enthusiasms are Status and Darwin.
• Alex is Dr Bernard Wodecruft, a historian, with interests of Sociability and Philanthropy.
• Adam plays Dr Thomas Braithwaite, a theologian specialising in Apologetics, with enthusiasms of Manipulation and God.
• I'm Dr Terence Balfour, an astronomer, with interests of Deception and Little Girls.

We start at the Formal Dinner in honour of Professor Phillips, who discovered the Roach: note how, in Darker, the Roach's discoverer starts alive. We're in scandal territory: Dr Caine publically accuses Phillips of plagiarising his early work (Caine discovered a similar insect previously); Dr Balfour breaks into Dr Caine's office to mutilate his specimens. With my interest in Little Girls, I bring in an innocent child, Annie. John soon Roaches Annie, thus establishing a theme of creepy little Roached girls.

The second event is the Catching Of The Hare: a bizarre tradition, in which twelve hares are pursued by the academics, through the gardens, in full academic dress (the academics, not the hares). I'd intended this event to be an eccentric, colourful kick-starter of ideas and it worked that way: Dr Caine accidentally-on-purpose shoots Dr Phillips with a shotgun, then implicates Lord Whiting, the benefactor. Meanwhile, Dr Braithwaite, newly roached, murders a student with a letter opener.

One particularly nice conflict, here, is when Dr Wodecruft attempts to shoot a hare. It's a non-academic conflict, so Wodecruft gets a d6 and the hare gets a d10. The hare wins, of course.

Two of us, I think, are Roached now.

By the third event, The Festival Of Science And Engineering, we're well into the swing of gore and mutilation. Dr Braithwaite is imprisoning people in the cellars, including Alice Spencer-Holding, a nine-year-old; Dr Caine smashes John Carruthers into a pulp, allows parasites to feast on his remains and displays the result at the Festival. I'm gathering an army of creepy little girls. A zombie makes an appearance, I believe.

The fourth event, Almsgiving, is my favourite. We're in high drama mode now. Dr Balfour, backed by Creepy Little Girl Army, attempts to persuade the people of the slums to rise up and serve the Roach. Father Alfred, leading an army of navvies, attempts to stop him. Open warfare ensues, which Balfour wins. Oh, and I think that, about this time, the Master of Darker College is dissolved in acid.

The fifth event is the funeral of Professor Phillips. (The exact way that Phillips died is, in the setting, left open: we'd shot him in the second scene). With our zombie theme, Phillips makes an appearance as a shambling corpse. Camp horror ensues. Other horrific things happen. No need to go into details, really, you get the picture.

Sixth event: the Master's Garden Party. We're in epic horror mode now. Indeed, all our NPCs for the last scene (Alice Spencer-Holding, the Master and Jim Redblood) are dead as the event starts. We bring them back as zombies.

My army of creepy little girls strips Darker of Christian symbols and books, starting a bonfire, which sets the College alight. Dr Braithwaite, who also has an army of little girls, marches against me and burns me in the bonfire. Dr Wodecruft has a final conflict against a stray hare.

Both Alex and John are unroached, at the end, both with zero reputation, having bet it all on the last conflict. We decide that Alex won, because we liked the stray hare conflict.

It's a very successful playtest. This worries me, slightly, because I'd prefer problems to show up: but, then, the Roach is a solid game, so I shouldn't be surprised that it still works when the setting's changed.

The Little Girls enthusiasm worked well and didn't, thank God, lead to paedophilia. The other Enthusiasms, despite being more specific than those in the original Roach, work nicely.

We decide that a few NPCs need switching: a Professor of Chemistry doesn't really do anything. And we decide to change the enthusiasm Novels to Opium. There's also a bit of confusion about the Standings of various NPCs.

Apart from that, all good stuff, and much more horrific than the last time I played the Roach.

Graham

Good God, how I feared that thread title! 

Did any of the standard cards ring false at all?  I'm imagining not, with the collegiate setting, but it is a concern for me.

No, all the cards worked well: new and old. In fact, it all went suspiciously well.

Oh, people kept saying Reputation instead of Greatness. Including me, in the above post. That's fine, though.

Graham

I feared the thread title too, especially since I didn't know it was a Roach variant.

Um ... is it a Roach variant? I mean, in the sense of an actual new game? What's new about it? I'm curious about whether this is really a playtest or a relatively normal my-setting minor hack of an existing game.

Best, Ron

Well, it's a setting for the Roach. It has new Enthusiasms, new Events, some new cards and other tweaks. So it's still definitely the Roach, not a new game.

But it's a playtest in the sense that I wanted to ensure all those new bits worked and didn't break anything. As I understand it, Jason's publishing Darker later this year, together with one of his settings, Overlord. Hence the playtesting effort.

Graham