Welcome to Exeunt Omnes, the official newsletter for loyal fans and sworn enemies of Exeunt Press, creator of games such as Exclusion Zone Botanist and Eleventh Beast. You can find digital games at games.exeunt.press and physical products at shop.exeunt.press.

TL;DR Summary

🌿 Video review of Exclusion Zone Botanist
😿 Games where everyone can lose
🦉 Delightfully in the dark with one-page RPGs
🩻 Tumulus Issue 2 shipping soon
🎲 Recently played: Black Sonata

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🌿 Video review of Exclusion Zone Botanist

Ithaquas Bane shared two videos about Exclusion Zone Botanist. The overview does a great job of explaining the differences between the original one-page trifold and the New Agent Handbook zine edition. The second video is an incursion into the EZ.

There is a mention of the upcoming Exclusion Zone Botanist: Epsilon campaign — noting the hints at it in the original — launching Spring 2025.

And don’t believe him when he says he can’t draw. His plant illustrations are wonderful! 🌱

PLAY: Exclusion Zone Botanist by Exeunt Press

😿 Games where everyone can lose

I wrote about Android: Infiltration at Skeleton Code Machine and how the game can end with no winner — everyone loses. In fact, in my most recent 6-player game of it, no one made it out of the complex in time. Everyone lost.

To me, the game is so thematic and plays quickly enough that I don’t mind everyone losing. It’s a fun push-your-luck puzzle to get in as far as you can, collect data files, and decide when to turn around to head back out. Sometimes you push it one room too far and there isn’t enough time to escape. That’s the game.

In the comments, Adam Bell noted that Archipelago is another game that plays with the idea of everyone losing:

I bring it up because it does something interesting with secret scoring cards that determine how the game ends and also how points are scored. One of the 10ish possible scoring cards makes you win if everyone loses, so there's a hint of social deduction to the game if things start to go off the rails.

Another reader mentioned The Republic of Rome where players (as Senators) compete against each other but must also cooperate to defend Rome.1 If Rome falls, everyone loses.

Having a condition where everyone can lose isn’t for everyone, but it is more popular than I would have guessed. According to the article’s poll, 85% of readers like games where it is possible for everyone to lose!

READ: Steal some zettabytes and everyone loses at Skeleton Code Machine

Skeleton Code Machine is an ENNIE-nominated weekly publication that explores tabletop game mechanisms. It’s been called a “Seemingly endless source of gaming ponderings” and a “Goldmine.” Check it out at www.skeletoncodemachine.com.

🦉 Delightfully in the dark with one-page RPGs

I started reading The Best Short Stories 2024 edited by Amor Towles. The introduction is particularly interesting, and made me think about short stories differently.

In the introduction, Amor makes the case that short stories can create a sense of surprise and mystery in a way that novels do not. This is due to the “textual dilution” that occurs with the inherent structure of a longer work — opening chapters trying to orient the reader. By establishing the time, setting, and characters, the reader is able to “venture forth into the narrative proper with a sense of context and confidence.”

Short stories, on the other hand, come without preamble or epilogue:

First, it is quite unusual for us to begin a short story with a sense of what it is about. Whether we read the story in a periodical, an anthology, or an author’s collection, we will not a find a synopsis of it on the dust jacket. Most stories we encounter haven’t been summarized in a review or sketched out for us by a recommending friend… So when we read the opening sentence of most short stories, we are delightfully in the dark.

I wonder if there is a similarity or connection to one-page roleplaying games.2

Where “big book” games begin with setting, exposition, and an attempt to orient the reader, one-page RPGs drop the reader (player) right into the game. There is no space for deep lore and extensive character development. There is less “textual dilution.”

In one-page games like Eleventh Beast, Caveat Emptor, and Exclusion Zone Botanist, there is precious little space to explain the game’s setting. At most, there is room for a few sentences. The reader, similar to a short story, is dropped right into the action — rules, prompts, mechanisms, and rolling dice.

Amor’s introduction helped me think of this not as a limitation of the design, but rather a way to keep players delightfully in the dark.

CREATE: Make Your Own One-Page RPG is available in print and PDF.

🩻 Tumulus Issue 2 shipping soon

The print order of Tumulus Issue 2 “Keep the wolves at bay” has arrived! It looks great, and I can’t wait to start shipping these.3 Some highlights in this issue include a guest article by and D6+D6 Hunters & Weapons with art by Perplexing Ruins. There’s also a playable dice-placement mechanism example that uses moon phases to determine dice pool size.

Any new Tumulus subscriptions that begin before March 1 will receive Issue 1 as their first issue. New subscriptions received March 1 or later will receive Issue 2 as their first. All subscriptions include four issues, delivered quarterly.

A limited number of Issue 1 back issues will be available at the Exeunt Press Shop sometime later in March.

SUBSCRIBE: Tumulus from Skeleton Code Machine

🎲 Recently played: Black Sonata

Black Sonata (Kean, 2017) is a solo deduction game set in Shakespeare’s 17th century London. The goal is to identify the Dark Lady (described in sonnets 127-152) by moving between various locations in the city, investigating, and eventually making a guess at her true identity.4 Solo deduction games are rare because they are inherently difficult to design. They require hidden information, but there is no “other player” to control that information.

My first play ended in defeat, running out of time before I could solve the mystery. I look forward to trying it again.

PLAY: Black Sonata designed by John Kean

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- E.P. 💀

1

I’m not familiar with this game. Looks like it was released in 1990, but there appears to be an upcoming The Republic of Rome: Remastered scheduled to be released this year. There is a pre-launch page on Backerkit.

2

The annual One-Page RPG Jam is the perfect place to explore the wide variety of one-page roleplaying games that exist. There were approximately 660 submissions for the 2024 jam. Many of them are free or have community copies available.

3

Tumulus Issue 2 will begin shipping in March 2025.

4

Much like the Fair Youth, many have made attempts to identify the Dark Lady with an actual person from history. Scholarly consensus is that she is probably a product of Shakespeare’s imagination and any evidence of links to historical figures is unconvincing.

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🦉 Delightfully in the dark with one-page…