DEATHMATCH ISLAND
Chris Lowry takes a look at Tim Denee's new RPG of sadistic reality TV and our issue 6 game of the month, Deathmatch Island.
DEATHMATCH ISLAND
Game design, writing, graphic design, layout, and illustration: Tim Denee
Publisher: Evil Hat Games
If you’ve ever watched Taskmaster and thought that all the contestants deserved to die - firstly, you might need some therapy - but secondly, you’re probably ready to encounter Deathmatch Island. Heavy with parallels to Squid Game, Hunger Games and Lost, this is a game show with only one winner, and lots of very dead losers.
In Deathmatch Island players create Competitors who have to survive three increasingly morbid islands, each run by the mysterious “Production” team (who the GM uses to turn the screws). Each island period is split into two phases; Phase One for exploration, building up fans and acquisitions through winning challenges; contests which often have a lethal outcome if performed poorly. Phase Two is where things get even more murderous, culminating in a battle royale amongst all the remaining competitors.
On the first island, only 50% of the starting six hundred players progress to the next. On the second, only six people will survive, and on the final island, only one. This rapid acceleration of the death rate is an interesting one; it forces PCs into making immediate, not-very-nice choices. Play on the first island tends to involve loose, large teams, with alliances forming as they point-crawl between nodes on the map. This play often narrows to close units of precisely six players on the second island, then completely dissolves on the third.
However, unlike many hidden traitor style games, little is hidden here; you all know that you are going to turn on each other eventually, but you also know that your absolute best chance for survival is sticking with one another until that moment. I found it surprisingly reassuring; with relatively little scheming - there simply wasn’t space amongst the frantic, life-on-the-line decisions.
PCs gain an Occupation, which gets a d6, and a favoured Capability at a d8. The other Capabilities (which are the system’s core stats) start at d6; the options being Social Game, Snake Mode, Challenge Beast, Deathmatch and [Redacted]. These are intentionally pretty malleable; approximately referring to friendliness, deception, competition, murderousness and [fighting the system] respectively. Various acquisitions (shotguns, lengths of rope, stolen helicopters) and the PCs level of fame also add dice too. For rolls these sizes form a dice pool with the highest two results then added together.
Contests are simple enough; Production create a dice pool, take the highest roll and add the Danger level of the current node; usually between 4 and 6. Players must then roll their own pool and try to match it. Production always roll first, allowing plenty of space for a narrative to be spun to decide exactly what’s happening and what’s at stake.
Central to Deathmatch Island is its mechanical base: the Paragon System, by Sean Nittner & John Harper. Readers will likely be well aware of Harper’s out of proportion impact on the RPG universe. Creator of two-stat-darling Lasers & Feelings, his prior major work, Blades in the Dark, revolutionised the concept of narrative RPGs; players facing challenges in a heist are encouraged to simply retcon ideas - “ah yes, I remember, I planted some explosives in this alleyway the night before…”. He has a way of approaching the way things have always been done and saying “lets do this instead…”
In Deathmatch Island, every scene revolves around a key Contest, that win or lose, that affects all the participants. It might be “Do you win the tug-of-war?”, or “Do you manage to escape the swarm of desperate contestants baying for your blood?” Rather than acting out every tiny component; “I swing with a knife [roll to hit]; see if they dodge [roll for agility]; do I pierce their armour [roll armour]; etc”; Players instead roll first, and can then determine exactly what they try and why they succeed/fail. The system was originally made for Harper’s high powered Gods ‘n Glory game AGON. (A table of Tim Denee’s changes between this game and Deathmatch Island appears on page 16 - a welcome decision, if perhaps a little odd to include it before explaining how this game actually works).
The foundational paradox of systems like Paragon (or indeed the somewhat similar Fiasco) is that they appeal to the most storytelling of roleplayers, those who are happy improvising with the sparsest of details on the fly; and yet they rely on an unassailably rigid structure; in this case the Contests and the Acts. I’m not complaining, I think both work very well, just be aware that you need a particular group who are ready to both flex and comply in the appropriate ways to make the game really pop.
One particularly great idea in each Phase Two is the Scramble; Production offer two Threats that the players face, meaning they can either Defend against, say, the massive, imminent gas explosion or the rumours spreading that the PCs are secretly wearing bulletproof armour; or they can try to Seize, gaining an advantage in the upcoming Battle Royale. It’s an impossible choice; nail-biting decisions, each with narratively volatile consequences, and never enough manpower to cover all the bases.
I don’t think it’s too much to say that the visual design of Deathmatch Island will go on to be considered iconic. The book is a modernist masterpiece; looking like the (fictionally) fascist game creators hired an exclusive 1960s furniture catalogue designer, then tasked them to create something so punchy it would successfully gaslight competitors into accepting a game with a 99.8% fatality rate. Honestly, it’s probably the best looking game I’ve read this year, and interacting with it is a total pleasure, partly because all the white space is so sexy, and partly because the information architecture is crystal clear.
Still, there’s no denying the Deathmatch Island is advanced narrative play. It’ll take several reads of the rulebook to fully comprehend the structure, even for veteran GMs, and the “Tips for Competitor Players” section is vital (my favourite tip for this, and all story-heavy games is “Think of a Great Moment, and Narrate Your Way There”. Incredible).
It’s also a potentially heavy challenge for the Production player: they manage all the NPCs; run an unusual, albeit simple, resolution system; and provide the [Redacted] plot of what’s happening behind the scenes. Theory Crafting is the opportunity that Competitor players have to brainstorm their own theories about this plot, and that part reminds me a little of Brindlewood Bay’s Theorizing - the Production player can choose to lean into or away from these ideas, riffing off their players.
Nevertheless, if you can get past the Paranoia-esque “How do I pretend to be in control and set everyone against each other” jitters, you’ll find Deathmatch Island to be a genre-defining narrative experience, a roleplaying game unlike anything else you’ve ever played.
I LOVE this game, maybe top 5 games of all time for me