Sepulchre

Sepulchre is hack or reimagining of the Spire’s rules and background to provide a less crunchy, pared down game that keeps key elements of the Spire’s background but has a lot more room for creative reinterpretation.

It’s interesting because it’s a rewrite of a game by its author, revealing what they think is the core of their game and what they wish to change or play around with.

I also found it personally engaging because I found the lore of the Spire a bit suffocating and didn’t really gel with “dark elves with guns” aesthetics. This hack gave me permission to play around with the whole setting and rules without worrying that something fundamental would break. It turns out that being part of a terrorist cell is not at all integral to the game experience.

Mechanics

The core of the game is relatively elegant except for the retention of the annoying use of D3 (not a problem obviously in an online world of games).

Generally though it is a GM’d system with the GM required to provide challenge, keep things moving, improvise narrative around the dice rolls and determining what approaches to problems in the narrative will be the most likely to succeed.

There’s an element (and this is true for a lot Howitt’s games) of “here’s some random tables and a resolution mechanism; now you create an enjoyable, well-paced narrative”.

What can be said is that at least the mechanism has been properly playtested and it’s relatively straight-forward to explain and even inexperienced players seem to have been able to intuitively grasp what’s going on.

Running games

The game comes with a strong framing mechanism in the form of a heist where the player characters are meant to be scheming to steal a strange and wonderful artefact.

This means you can quickly create characters or simply tweak the pregens on offer and get stuck into a game.

The theft also has a wider context, as if the group are successful they will also be disrupting the social power structure of their society that is based on access and control to these artefacts. Steal enough of them and you’ll be the new ruling elite.

This structure actually feels stronger than the “freedom fighters or terrorists” theme of Spire. Or rather Spire maybe has too many themes and as a result any one individual thread is drowned out by the others.

Instead you’re stealing things and telling yourself that it’s a noble act. The only way to prove that is how you use what you’ve stolen.

Conclusion

It’s a stripped back game that for me is far more playable than the original. It still relies too much on the GM to bring the game and doesn’t give enough tools for the players to contribute. But it’s strong for what it is.