The Fool

The Fool is a TTRPG for exactly five people. In this game, four people play as one character - the Fool. Embodying different aspects of the character, they’ll collectively vie for control and bicker over whether to keep him alive or go out in a blaze of glory, exchanging tokens to perform decisive actions and enforce thoughts until they become internalized in the Fool's mind and they're unable to let go of them.

It is a game within a game - while the Voices play by their own rules, the Fool is in a completely other world, using the voices as their stats for a more traditional tabletop game when needed. Meanwhile, the City will act against them and react to them, weaving a coherent story in the background using prompts from tarot cards.

Roles

• The Head - the fool’s intellect, their brain, and the total sum of their knowledge. The role that gets to make up facts about the world and deep dive into lore.

• The Soul - The fool’s emotional capacity, their psyche, and their ability to connect. The role that protects the fool from emotional damage, and gets to find the hidden reasons behind people’s actions.

• The Blood - the fool’s body, their strength, their Manhood(TM), and their intuition. The role that protects the fool from physical damage, and convinces them to get up, and get up, and get up. Also can identify and withstand substances such as alcohol or drugs.

• The Nerve - the fool’s reaction time and ability to manipulate things. The role that protects the fool from dangers before anyone else registers the threat, as well as the one that can talk to machines and complex crafts. Its decision to shoot first has the possibility to matter more than any other decision in the game.

• The City - This game was designed to work in no particular setting, instead happening in the City, a fabricated location with input from every player. It can be set anywhere - real or fake, fantasy or modern - though was designed with a simple, modern city in mind. The City is everyone's character, and no one's - everyone gets a say in what makes it up - but one person will take on the mantle of running The City, playing the actors and things that react to the fool in the world.

This game is built upon the Belonging Outside Belonging system, also known as the No Dice, No Masters system, originally developed by Avery Alder (in Dream Askew) and Benjamin Rosenbaum (In Dream Apart), a system designed to center marginalized groups who have been cast out of conventional society to make their own community. Here, it tackles the question: "What if the one casting you out is yourself?" and explores themes of foolishness, perseverance in spite of your mind, and accepting that sometimes you’re an absolute dumbass, and that fact doesn’t detract from your worth as a person. 

The Fool is a loveletter to the videogames Disco Elysium and Esoteric Ebb, and takes inspiration from the ttrpgs Everyone is John by Michael B. Sullivan, Bluebeard's Bride by Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, and Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi.

The art used for the thumbnail, 3d book mockup, and other pieces of artwork are courtesy of Strega Wolf van den Berg and are licensed under the Creative Comrades License Agreement 1.0.

Sadie Marston is a transgender woman, librarian, and game designer from the Boston, Massachusetts area of the United States. You can find her on bsky @thiefofembers and her other works on itch @threeofembers. Follow The Fool on Gamefound at https://gamefound.com/en/projects/thiefofembers/the-fool