Today, I’ll be covering a TTRPG recommended to me by friend of the Substack:
. If you’re not following the man, you should, Raven is awesome and covers quite a lot of topics.Imagine a world where Supernatural creatures are everywhere and humanity to varying degrees is aware of them. Those that don’t, either live in blissful ignorance making TikToks and other assorted brainrot for an audience of similarly minded individuals, unaware of the closet monster that stalked and menaced them throughout their childhood has secretly been watching them and taking all of their left socks and shoes, eventually planning to make a meal out of them.
And the ones aware, hunt and kill the things that go bump in the night with various articles of the mundane modified to exterminate the would-be monsters or harnessing powers you’ve only read about in the teen fiction section of your local Barnes & Noble.
(Artwork from The Secret World)
Welcome to Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars! A modern supernatural horror TTRPG and toolkit where you can craft your own horror adventure in one of their various settings or Night Worlds, or make something of your own.
You want to make a game based on the Supernatural TV show? Well, you can do that!
Not a fan of the CW? Not a problem!
This is a game where you can take your favorite horror movie monster and loose them on your unsuspecting players.
Or not.
The possibilities are endless.
Night Shift is published by Elf Lair Games and authored by two men, whom I suspect are secretly planning to take over the world through the slow and inevitable corruption of the masses:
(Picture taken from Elf Lair)
Jason Vey, a man who is no stranger to the industry, having worked with and contributed to Palladium. As well as Eden Studios on some projects that you may know, one of those being a Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. I’m not kidding, that exists. Currently, he also writes for Troll Lord Games, publisher of Castles and Crusades, writing material for that as well as Amazing Adventures (another TLG original). When he’s not working a 9-5, or smoking tobacco from a pipe constructed the bones of his enemies, he’s cooking some quality entertainment!
(Not actually Mr. Brennan, though it very well could be. Please don’t sue!)
And Timothy S. Brennan. Okay, I’ll be honest, I couldn’t find a picture of this guy, so for the sake of this article, we’re just going to pretend he’s this guy featured above. I don’t think I wanna fuck with him.
Anyway, Mr. Brennan has freelanced with Eden Studios as well and is partially responsible for Night Shift and the company’s own rule system: O.G.R.E.S.
“But Sig,” I hear you ask: “what exactly is O.G.R.E.S.?”
O.G.R.E.S. or Old-school Generic Roleplaying Engine System is the rules-lite system developed by Elf Lair that started with this game and utilizes a mixture of elements as well as different dice:
d4s are part of the Rule of 2 which I will cover later, as well as determining the Vitality of a specific class.
d6s which are the primary dice used within the system, not just for character creation but for damage. Every weapon, monster attack, spell, does the same damage.
d8s determine the max Vitality of a few specific classes, as well as determining damage for certain spells.
d10s determine initiative order unless otherwise stated for monsters, such as zombies who due to their slow and lumbering nature always go last in the turn order.
d12s are used as part of the Rule of 2 I mentioned earlier and, for me at least, the damage of explosives and explosive weapons.
d20s which are used to determine outcomes of certain skill checks and attack rolls from both players and monsters.
d100 is used similarly to Call of Cthulhu percentile system to determine whether a class skill is successful or note and is also used in spellcasting.
The Rule of 2 as mentioned above is a resolution mechanic which varies depends on the situation. Is your party stuck and in need of an out? This rule will help you select one of the die and depending on the number rolled, perhaps a secret door or important item that was missed before can be found, or maybe the party was struggling with a clue and finally notices something they didn’t see before. Each die has a different percentage of success and can increase or decrease the difficulty depending on character information or circumstance.
For me, the most unique mechanic is this: the target number is always 20 for skill checks, attack rolls, etc. Which is helped by the inclusion of another mechanic, Aspected/Normal/Disadvantaged (this wasn’t coined until the second game in the O.G.R.E.S. trilogy: Wasted Lands). Basically, every class, has an attribute they’re really good at, kind of like real life, except, you can die from it (also like real life).
Example: Marie the Veteran’s Aspect is Strength, therefore, they get an extra bonus on those attribute rolls. Some zombies are beating down the door and Marie, is using her Strength to bar the door while one of her other party members grabs something to secure it.
She rolls a d20 on a Strength check, it comes up a 16.
“Well shit…” her player says, “How the fuck am I supposed to make 20?”
She looks on her character sheet, she notices that her Aspected bonus for Strength is a +2 to the check, this combined with her Attribute Bonus (which let’s assume that it’s 16 in this case) grants her another +2, making her roll a 20 and just enough to hold the undead masses at bay and her Survivor friend, returns with a metal bar, strong enough to wedge in place of the door, rendering them safe for now.
That’s just one of the many situations you as a Game Master or Player may find yourself in. The system is simple and it works, on top of that, it also helps to keep the game fast-paced.
Now that we’ve gotten some of the mechanics out of the way, let’s talk about the Classes:
Chosen Ones are Gary Stus and Mary Sues respectively. They can’t wear armor, but they make up for it with the absolute insane amount of attacks they get as they level up. If you have a player that wants to play a Chosen One, I urge you to help them reconsider.
Inventors through the power of comic books and SCIENCE! can craft items that have spell effects or repair broken machinery, which depending on what’s going on in your game, can be anything from the iPad a party member uses to check their Facebook to modifying an assault rifle to shoot fireballs from grenade launcher attachment that you ended up stealing from the government facility that is making undead soldiers.
Psychics can make shit fly at you, read your mind or detect who ate the last of your party’s snacks on your roadtrip to your next case. They also can mindfuck you with the power of memes and render you a drooling, jibbering mess with enough training. This however, can also backfire.
Sages are know-it-alls who wish they could look as good in Hot Topic clothing much like their Warlock and Witch counterparts. They can speak multiple languages and also, dabble in spellcasting. So, that one kid who watched an episode of Sigfried and Roy and suddenly wanted to do magic tricks. (I hate seeing myself in this book…)
Survivors, survive, whether it be by breaking into the safe at work, hiding-in-shadows because the IRS is beating down their door because they forgot to file their taxes back in April. They are the modern equivalent of Rogues.
Theosophists or as I like to call them as seen on TV psychics one day, found out their power to call for spirits was real and are unable to cope with that fact, so they use that power to help the party, in the vain hopes that one day the mental medication will kick in and that the ghost that sleeps next to them in bed at night is nothing more than a bad dream.
Veterans punch shit, shoot shit and probably have watched every Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick, as well as Full Metal Jacket on repeat. Their gimmick is “if one die says I don’t hit you hard enough, I can roll again and hit you harder than that”.
Warlocks and Witches shop at Hot Topic or Spencers, can quote every episode of Charmed from memory and sing Evanescence, while brooding in their parents’ basement. These are your Wizards, squishy, expendable glass cannons that can either change the entire flow of battle by nuking multiple enemies with a single spell or be knocked unconscious because the Goddess of Magic looked to the other Gods and said “Hey, watch this”. And because she’s a spiteful Goddess, she not only causes the spell to backfire, causing an extremity to inflate to a colossal size and losing their ability to cast a spell because they rolled a 99 on a 65% spellcasting check.
It’s magic, I ain’t gotta explain shit.
(Source: Know Your Meme)
And that’s only scratching the surface of just how fun this game is.
Still not convinced?
Well, how about a personal story from my own time GMing this game to sell you on it.
So, while making their way through the hospital where a necromancer had taken residence in and was experimenting on the townsfolk, turning them into zombies, they came across a door to a hidden passage, leading to some abandoned offices being remodeled within the hospital, a zombie, surprised them knocked over a crate and after dispatching the undead meatbag, the Veteran player, recognizing the crate as military ordinance opened it up, discovering an M32A1 Rotary Grenade Launcher and two grenades.
The grin on the Veteran player’s face was priceless as she and her party ended the necromancer in a fiery ball of death, the resulting explosion taking out the necromancer’s laboratory only to have his soul stolen by the very creature he was working for. Not wanting to leave the last grenade of what was supposed to be a one-shot, they fired again, missing, causing the party to run before the laboratory exploded in such a spectacular fashion that Michael Bay would sue for copyright infringement.
And that is the story of how my in-person group started playing Night Shift.
It’s a great game that encourages creativity and shits on convention. A game where you can relive your favorite horror movie moments, make your own, or even start a Harry Potter inspired magic school from the Night World: Generation HEX. And that’s just for starters, there’s an entire Companion Book I didn’t even cover, which gives you some new options, classes and races, as well as some other material to spice up your games.
I give it 8 over-enthusiastic Michael Bay-style explosions out of 10.
You can find the game and its supplements here.
Or if for some reason you like using DriveThruRPG, that’s an option as well.
Thank all of you for reading, if you enjoyed this, please like, comment and subscribe!
And if you want to hear about my crazy games of Night Shift, be sure to let me know. I don’t have many stories, but I would not mind sharing my experience with the game.
Edit: Almost forgot to mention, the third in the O.G.R.E.S. trilogy, Thirteen Parsecs is available for pre-order. If you missed out on the campaign, are already an avid player of Elf Lair Games and love space faring adventures, you can check it out here.
As always, more content to come, have a good one.
Until our paths cross once again!
I got to read this on my break at work and I couldn't have provided a better breakdown of the game itself. People, if you're looking for a D&D and World of Darkness replacement as well as a really cool sci-fi game, just buy Wasted Lands, Night Shift and Thirteen Parsecs because for the price you'll pay WoTC for the upcoming D&D release, you'll save a bit and get three games instead of one. Also, don't forget the Night Companion for some more character classes including The Immortal which can take your character through all three games!