Crisis is my take on the storygame format. Inspired by Jim Pinto's Protocol series and Jason Morningstar's Fiasco, this game is my take on telling a story up against the clock. There are literal clocks, counting down and keeping the scenes urgent. There are mechanical clocks, counting down at the end of every scene and threatening future scenes with disaster. And there's a metaphorical clock, pushing every protagonist and Foil to resolve their issues in just four scenes each.

The scenarios are jumping off points, story-rich prompts that invite the players to answer their own questions and build a collaborative world of Yes, And... instead of wondering what the designer's original intent was. No two groups will ever play the same session of Crisis, and that's the point: We know how the story starts and are racing to find out how it ends, or make sure it doesn't end too soon.

This playtest version is out to test the game itself, and also to support the release of the BITE social deduction game. This board game comes out October 2019 and has a scenario featured in the Crisis RPG to make use of the components when you aren't playing a twelve-player social deduction event. Part of the Nerdhaus philosophy is making games playable on multiple levels, so the world-building from the board game influences the design choices in the rpg scenario. The physical artifact of the role cards becomes inspiration for the rpg, and the randomized nature of drawing cards becomes an element of your fate in the storygame. It's all tied together. (And a pdf is available on the site for those who don't have a copy of the board game on hand, so don't feel like you have to buy a copy just to hunt monsters in your small village).