Welcome To DIE: What It’s Like To Play The New TTRPG

DIE invites you into the world of your favorite RPG, to either discover yourself or leave yourself behind…forever. With the release of the game’s official Kickstarter, the writers of ComicsXF have joined together to play their own version of the game, and write about their own experiences with the system. Welcome to DIE…the write-up.

Prep

Armaan Babu: DIE is worth getting excited about.

The comic checked a lot of boxes for me. Kieron Gillen writing? Stephanie Hans art? Commentary on tabletop roleplaying games? Being trapped in a world you’ve known all your life, interacting with the fantasies that have idly been playing in the back of your mind, that define you more than you’d ever want to admit? A giant, glaring, obnoxious pun right there in the title? 

The aim of a games master in DIE (joy of rarest joys, games masters get their own character sheet and a personal part to play in the story as well) is to tempt players to stay and leave the real world behind forever or go back to the real world, leaving behind the fantasy world. It’s up to the players to decide which of these to choose, but choose they must, or the world falls apart, leaving everyone to, well, die. So every class is appealing. Every ability is empowering to a degree that, in the right hands (or, more so, the wrong hands), can be terrifying. Player characters aren’t just gods, some literally bind gods to their will — but all this shiny treasure always comes at a cost.

The classes in DIE are somewhat different, though. They’re more than their abilities, each class is a character judgment, and a framework for how their story is told and will ultimately resolve. Classes in DIE feel a lot more personal, and here’s the thing that really sweetens the deal: they’re all also horrifyingly powerful. 

In DIE, character creation is twofold. You first create the “real world” personas — the mundane, messy people who have come together to play the game. You want these people to have real world problems, disappointments, failings; in short, a reason to leave their world behind. Then comes the second part, where the Games Master gives each one of them a character class loosely based on their personality. What are the things a persona struggles with, and which character class best exemplifies that struggle? GM’s choice, but there’s a twist: the GM has been given access to a pocket dimension to shape to their will, and they will drag their players right into that world to try and convince them to stay there for the rest of their lives. 

We wanted to have fun with the meta aspect this game encourages, so the premise of our game was this: we were a bunch of writers for a comic book site who decided to play DIE in order to write about the Kickstarter. We played characters who worked for CosmicSFF. I played a controlling GM who wasn’t going to let anyone leave until they’d played DIE and had written the perfect article about it.

To save time, we did the “Session Zero” in a Google Doc, figuring out our characters, their relationships to each other, and what more they might want from life. One of the GM’s roles here is, like the comic, to figure out what would tempt the players to stay in a fantasy world, and being aware of what reasons they would have to leave.

It’s that last one that I kept having the most trouble figuring out.

The Solo Session

Armaan: With the Session Zero stuff done, I then crafted a world that would play as much as possible to the various interests, passions and pet peeves of the player personas. Largely a fantasy world, as we’ll get to, but with slightly more modern war elements in it as well because of how much Sean’s character enjoyed war comics. It was now time to get the players in. Unfortunately, getting schedules to line up proved tricky, so I chose to have two sessions — Sean Dillon would play in a one-on-one session, a test run for the GM I played before he tried his powers on the rest of the group. 

Hi, Sean! It’s mentioned in the manual that scheduling is one of the hardest parts of the game, and that certainly proved true this time. I still feel bad we weren’t able to make the schedules work on time, but it did give us the chance to test DIE out as a one-on-one game experience. It’s not something I’d do for most other TTRPGs, but with the GM-as-player, I feel DIE is one of the few games for which a one-on-one game works. Before we get into that, however, would you like to talk a bit about the character you played, and the persona who played them?

Sean Dillon: Sure thing. I played a cynical old comics critic by the name of David Baker (often referred to as Soldier Dave considering there are like 50 Daves in this profession and Dave’s the one who likes War Comics). David is a somewhat miserable bloke who is trying their best to not be so miserable. Chief amongst their misseries was (and perhaps still is) their workload. They’ve taken on far too many articles both for ComicsSFF and outside of it. Among them was an article forced on them by the editor wherein Dave was forced to write about Secret Empire. In exchange, Dave could write a piece on Barefoot Gen, a comic Zakhary didn’t think would appeal to anyone because it’s not Marvel/DC. Said piece (intentionally or not, but David thinks the former) was published the day the new Doctor Who was announced, so it got buried. Dave in turn, takes revenge by turning in an absolutely savage piece on Secret Empire and spending most of the article talking about cake recipes. They have just enough good will with creators at Marvel and DC for Zakhary not to fire them.

When they were invited by Darpan (your GM character) to play an RPG (which, like myself, they’ve been meaning to get into, but haven’t), they decided to roleplay as someone a tad bit more optimistic. Someone who looks at the world with awe and wonder. A part of their character they created (Walter Jones, the Amazement Knight, who looks like a Scottish David Bowie. With a mustache) was that they wanted to be a grim reaper sort of fellow who can highlight that death isn’t inherently terrifying. That Blue Oyster Cult song with the cowbell and all that. And David did end up with the cloak of the grim reaper… but Darpan, being an asshole who (presumably) thought the whole Secret Empire thing was hilarious, railroaded Dave into wielding Mjönir.

Suffice it to say, while Dave spent a lot of the time in DIE being amazed by the strangeness of the world, they also spent a lot of it screaming profanities at Darpan for being a cock.

Armaan: Darpan is definitely a bit of a lazy GM who takes delight in pushing his players into uncomfortable situations. I, however, was just high off the sheer silliness of having your hammer say, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if they be amazed, shall possess the power of Walter Jones.”

I have to say, though, I enjoyed the way you embraced amazement for a persona who’s turned so cynical. The Knight’s character sheet makes their weapon sentient, always trying to manipulate their wielder into feeling the emotion that powers the Knights. Your character sheet said Mjolnir’s voice was one of awe, which was a lot of fun to play — and Dave and their weapon seemed to develop a rather touching relationship over the short course of the one shot. 

How well do you feel the character sheet played into Dave’s story? 

Sean: I think the character sheet helped shape the overall mood Dave approached the world. If they were to play things closer to themselves (which I’ve done with other roleplaying games), then they’d probably be more powerful and not get nearly killed by the second encounter. But they also would be miserable throughout, and they want to get out of the mindset that led them to be bitter towards the critical field they came to love.

Likewise the double act between Dave and Mjönir was absolutely charming. A cynic trying to find their joy teaming up with an amoral hammer who is so happy and awestruck by everything they see. Mainly the blood and guts of our enemies.

But perhaps the central aspect of the character sheet that impacted Dave’s story the most was the reason for why they have 1 defense. I took some time when figuring out why this would be the case, both due to Dave (and, admittedly, my own) unfamiliarity with the DIE system. But, at the end, I hit upon a more metaphorical reason for this than the literal ones the manual suggested: I refuse to die before I’ve seen everything. It speaks a lot to Dave’s character that they would go with that route.

Armaan: I liked that a lot as well — it lent a lot more to your character than, say, saying you just have really cool armor. The character sheet, as currently designed, leaves a little space for that kind of creativity. The mechanical effect may have been the same, but having THAT be the reason your defenses were up was cool.

Now for the big question: what did you think of DIE overall? Now that you’ve played it, how likely are you to want to play it again, especially when the official version is completed and released?

Sean: Well, I backed the Kickstarter. Which is to say I had a lot of fun with this game. The meta “game within a game” aspects of this never got too overwhelming. (Though, now that I write that, I can’t help but think of that XKCD gag about starting a game of DnD in a game of DnD and what that would look like in DIE. Would the various fantasy people decide to create real world personas and then get sucked into a Starbucks where rolling a nat 1 after demanding to see an uppity barista’s manager reveal that the barista is, in fact, the manager? What strange combination of characters would team up in such a world? I mean, a bard would be a Rockstar, right? Why would they be hanging out with a priest, a soldier, and an asshole? Could make for a fun gag.) I loved the character development aspects of the game, where everyone had the opportunity to interact with other players for their own amusement.

There were two moments that come to mind when I think of my time in DIE. The first is a series of small scenes that led to the big action scene. They were quieter moments than you’d expect from an RPG in the vein of the more dungeoneering style of DnD. First, I had a rather melancholic conversation with Mjönir about the fleeting nature of my time both within and without of DIE. They ask Mjönir what they’d like to see, to which they reply “a sunset.” This, in turn, led to Dave talking personally about how their brother was a shit to them for… reasons that Dave refused to elaborate on. (Note Dave’s pronouns.) They ended the conversation by harmonizing “Don’t Fear the Reaper” with Mjönir joining in (though they did not know the lyrics). In a move of kindness, Dave moved the cot so it could see the outside of the tent. I placed Mjönir facing towards the sunrise. They were happy to see a “backwards sunset.”

When we flew off to the final boss in a WWII era fighter plane, Darpan sent a pair of giant ass demons at Dave (who had to stand on the plane while it’s in-flight because there’s no room inside), both of whom have the face of Dave’s brother. They did not take this well, spending the entire encounter screaming “FUCK YOU” at the demons. Dave proceeded to one hit kill one of them by throwing their hammer at the demon’s face. (Fun fact: I rolled three sixes.)

The second moment came at the end of the campaign. Darpan made an offer to Dave about helping him create the group campaign in exchange for being allowed to leave DIE. He even offered to let David use Mjönir fly like the comic book Thor. They think about it, asking Darpan about the nature of heroism. They then agree to the deal, shaking on it and getting the power to fly.

This would end in Dave’s death were they not successful at what happened next. Indeed, in the campaign, it did out of haste. But in the post game, we [or maybe I] realized that it wouldn’t be in character for Dave to stick with Darpan after what they did. So we retconned the ending.

And then… a funny thought came into both mine and David’s heads. David talks, in private, to Mjönir to which they (for want of a better word) smile at. I rolled the D6 without telling you what I was going to do. I got one failure and one success. I then proceed to hit Darpan in the balls with Mjönir before flying away. I got away with it because Darpan has no ranged attacks. An absolutely charming moment.

The Group Session

Armaan: With the Sean’s solo session done, we moved on to the group. A quick rundown of the remaining characters: 

• Rasmus Lykke played Matt Hester, a character obsessed with TTRPGs, determined to prove his expertise on the subject.
• Ian Gregory played Zakhary Evans, Lead Editor of CosmicSFF (any resemblance to our esteemed editor of ComicsXF is entirely coincidental!), who doesn’t really understand this TTRPG stuff but knows it can draw in some clicks.
• Rob Secundus played Timmy Tertius, someone new to the world of comics criticism, joining the group in the hope of making friends. 
• Mark Turetsky played Howie Sails, a bookkeeper by day, desperate to break into either comics design or game development — anything to get him away from dreary numbers. 

Joining me to talk about the group experience is Rasmus, hi! You were part of the game that included the rest of the group, would you like to talk a bit about who you played, and the character class you received?

Rasmus Lykke: Hi Armaan!

As part of our session zero, you’d written up some broad prompts for our persona generation. I decided on playing the RolePlayer, which had the prompt of: “Someone with a lot of experience in TTRPGs, believes they’re the real expert here, ready to show everyone how it’s done.”

Which I twisted slightly into a guy that just pretends he knows all about TTRPGS, but is really just a huge Critical Role fan, doesn’t know anything that hasn’t been on the show and this is secretly his first time playing a TTRPG.

I drew a bit on my own (somewhat limited, though not nearly as much as Matt’s) history with TTRPGs, love for Critical Role and most of all, what I thought would be a fun character and a good fit for the party (which, in DIE, mostly means that he’d be a bad fit).

Another reason why I leaned into the Critical Role aspect, is because DIE is a heavily meta game. Monsters, NPCs and basically the entire world is built up of things provided by the players and their persona. In the comic, it’s characters’ obsession with the history of RPGs, litterature, etc. that provide the world. In our game, it was our roles as writers for CosmicSFF, love for Critical Role, etc. It’s the thing which makes DIE special, really. It creates a stronger connection between players and the world, because in a very real way, it’s built on your input.

Being familiar with the classes, I figured that someone who was there to show everyone how it was done, would end up being a Dictator, a Godbinder or maybe a Neo. I, like Matt, was very wrong. I was the Fool.

Why would you screw me over like that, Armaan?

I’m joking! 

Just joking, don’t worry.

…

But seriously, Armaan, why?

Armaan: I actually went back and forth a lot with this one — you were almost a Godbinder, especially since Rob Secundus, who played the ever-cheerful Timmy, seemed like a natural fit. But the interesting thing about the Fool is that their sheet forces them to have fun — or at least, give off the appearance of it. You laid out that Matt doesn’t really think much of DIE, and what better way to get someone interested in a game than to have them have fun with it?

The process of elimination also helped. I knew that the Lead Editor, Zakhary, would work best as the Dictator, given how much he enjoyed bossing other people around. Howie, with his work in game development and hunger for a more interesting life, seemed like a good fit for the Neo. While Timmy was originally going to be the Fool, I felt like it might be more fun to give Timmy his own group of permanent friends he could call upon in a battle, welcoming him to DIE. 

But mostly, I see anyone who thinks that their idea of fun can be superior to anyone else’s idea of fun as foolish, and they need to be turned towards a more ridiculous path. This was interesting to me — as a GM, I don’t like telling players how to play the game, or punishing them for not playing a certain way, but the Fool’s character sheet necessitates it. It was uncomfortable, telling you that you weren’t allowed to use your Fool die for certain roles because you weren’t being carefree enough — but it fit the mechanics, and it’s a great example of how DIE forces the narrative.

What did you think of that aspect of it — how the Fool character sheet had you play?

Rasmus: I’ll be honest, there were some challenges.

There were a few reasons for this. First of all, the persona I’d created – Matt – was a huge Critical Role fan and decided to make himself into his favorite character, Scanlan Shorthalt. Which meant I had to take the Fool in the spellcaster direction. This is possible, but does probably require a bit more planning beforehand between the player and the GM, which we didn’t really have time for.

Secondly, both me and Matt had expected another kind of class, so adjusting to playing the Fool was a bit of a struggle. Matt relied a bit too much on the same type of attack (a fire bolt cantrip, shot out from his crotch in true Scanlan fashion, thanks to a lovely bit of GM description from you), which wasn’t very reckless and Fool-ish. And you rightly corrected me for it, which pushed Matt to loosen up a bit and go more reckless in the final fight, where he ended up wielding Soldier Dave’s Mjölnir, as he was full of amazement at that point.

Because Matt got to meet his heroes. Part of the adventure you had us on, led to our group of “adventures” (using the term very loosely) meeting Vox Machina, from Critical Role. And not only that, Matt got to help them overcome their biggest nemesis – A door.

Armaan: I actually had a number of scenarios set up, using a little bit from everyone’s backstory, and let you choose. It was a fun set-up. I wanted the main villain to be, more than Darpan himself, that one thing all us writers fear — the blank page. The constant pressure of needing to fill it up, but not knowing how, or with what. So it was fun starting you all off on that blank page, and have that evil, patient little blinking cursor end up being the Dark Tower you’d all have your final confrontation on top of. The void gave way to the fantasy world of Themad Euppla-Ce.

Once you were in the world proper – and had beaten your first Fallen – I wanted to play up the pressure a bit, and maybe force a few quotes for this article. One of my favorites came from Mark, about the game: “It’s a roller coaster thrill ride for the senses, an unending spiral of death and destruction, that will satisfy even the most jaded readers,” which I deemed good enough to stave off the press’ psychic damage of inquiry.  I had you all surrounded by a press pool of people who would get increasingly frustrated when your answers were vague, or unquotable, until, of course, they went all frenzied and attacked.

Of course, with them cleared away (Timmy’s god managed to miraculously make them feel like they could find better jobs elsewhere, this much effort really wasn’t worth it for what they were being paid), well, that’s when you met the Editor – a monstrous version of our game’s Zakhary, offering you all payment and a shortcut to the Dark Tower in exchange for a report on local events. 

You all chose the Critical Role path, which was a relief, because they’re the characters I know best. I’m extra amused that you then took an hour of the session trying to find a way past the door, something that’s given them much trouble in the past.

Rasmus: It was delightful. The Critical Role fan in me squealed when I realized what the big problem we had to help them with was.

But before we got to that delightful part, you’d leaned a bit more into the horror angle of the game. Like I said in our post-game talk, you really dove into the deep-end of horror for our group of writing, stranding us in a white void, with a giant black, blinking cursor. Realizing we were trapped with the blank page was pretty scary.

Then reality shifted and we had the standard encounter with the Fallen, where you handled the online nature of our game wonderfully, by having us separate in our own rooms, but with the walls made of paper, so we could hear each other and quickly group up.

As we faced the hungry maws of the press pool, we got to play a bit more with our abilities, since we’d leveled up after the first fight. Matt was overthinking things, trying to figure out the perfect way to talk us out of the problems, when Timmy instead just called on his god, Raphael – The Teenage Mutant Ninja God, to solve the problem. It was a great way to solve the problems we faced, without resorting to fighting. And then, just as us writers (and editor Zakhary) thought we had solved things and were ready to move on with our task, of course the ‘real’ editor showed up, ready to tell us all how everything we’d done was wrong and to give us a new assignment, because we need to keep engagement up for the site. Too real, Armaan. Too real.

We chose the Critical Role route, met Vox Machina and saw the challenge. As we talked with Vox Machina, mostly Scanlan, Matt was freaking out and awestruck in the background, because meeting his heroes was almost too much for him. Getting to meet the Scanlan Shorthalt? The Pike Trickfoot? Grog? Unreal. Luckily everyone else was much more relaxed, because to them it was just a bunch of NPCs with a quest they had to solve, so we could go home. After the group tried a few things to open the door, Matt decided to use one of his Fool’s powers, Fool’s Prep. It’s a skill that can be used only once per session, to find precisely the object that you need right now. He used it to find the key to the door and that helped him work up the courage to actually talk to Vox Machina, as he triumphantly produced the key, earning him the admiration of the entire cast of Critical Role, especially Scanlan. Matt was on cloud nine, as the door burst open and a dozen Fallen rushed out. Matt couldn’t believe his luck. Not only did he get to help Vox Machina with a door – a bigger feat than it sounds like -, he was also going to get to fight alongside his heroes!

And then everything froze in time, as Matt Mercer’s voice rang out from above: “And that’s where we’ll leave off, everyone. We’ll continue this next week. Thank you all for watching. And – Is it Thursday yet?”, in the signature sign-off from every episode of Critical Role. Everything faded away, the Fallen, the surroundings and also Vox Machina. Which was honestly for the best, because otherwise Matt probably wouldn’t have wanted to ever leave DIE.

Armaan, can you talk a bit about how Darpan was going to tempt us all to stay in DIE with him?

Armaan: Well, like I said earlier, figuring out what would tempt people felt like the easier part. Zakhary wanted power — for people to listen to him, no matter what he said, and giving him the power of the Dictator was the easiest way to do that. For David, I wanted to give them that sense of amazement that their job had long ago wrung out of them. For Howie, a place where he could literally hack into reality, reprogram it — wanted to give him the power to actually affect change, and be appreciated for it, which is why his Fair Gold brought him back to the first time he ever felt seen, and validated online. Timmy, well, Timmy seemed to need a place to belong, and between the gods all being super friendly with him, and getting to go on adventures with his fellow critics, he seemed to be having a good time. Lastly, of course, was your character — I wanted to show him how much fun TTRPGs could be.

Of course, Darpan was merely ticking boxes as far as temptations went. His true purpose was to have everyone come into the game just long enough to be able to write the perfect article about it, and then leave, which is why at the final confrontation, you were all transported to a Google Doc. Even if you guys had chosen to start writing — which some of you did — Darpan was always going to try and force you to do better.

I found that the group session was a lot more playful than the solo one, especially at this final confrontation — most of you just refused to cooperate, and from that point on it wasn’t long until Darpan was defeated. The Games Master suffers terrible consequences when he’s caught cheating, and Darpan was no exception. Mark Turetsky – who played Howie – has done excellent coverage of the comic with Corey, and knew just what needed to be done to send everyone home and finish the game.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with the game — and I’m eager to play it again some time. I’m especially curious as to what will change in terms of the final rules. What are you most looking forward to there?

Rasmus: Honestly, it’s hard to limit it to even a few things.

Before the Kickstarter launched, I was already excited for it. Like you said earlier, the project is extremely my jam. Gillen writing, Hans art-ing, the pun in the title, all the lovely meta aspects, the playing with form. It’s all making me excited.

After my recent talk with Kieron Gillen about the game, I think I’m most excited about just seeing how much and what has changed. As our game definitely made clear, the system from the beta already works. We all had a great time and we all wanted to play again. So any improvements from the beta will go towards making an already good game great. Which has me very much looking forward to the final product and getting it to the table.

Either that or just more Stephanie Hans art, really.

Armaan: One of the rewards hidden behind the door that Vox Machina was trying to unlock, that. Not to mention one of the rewards to that is being unlocked on the Kickstarter, which you can find here, and for people who are interested in playing the game and can’t wait, the beta version is still available for free here. 

I mentioned earlier that I had trouble figuring out why, exactly, one would want to leave DIE. For my players, it was simply because they felt the game was over, and it was time to get back to the real world. Myself, though — I’m still having trouble leaving it, and I’m looking forward to diving right back in the first chance I get.

The DIE Kickstarter is currently in its’ final week. It has been fully funded and blown past every stretch goal.