Clive Evil has observed, in his boney skeletony way, that FiveEvil is not a “normal” 5E game.

It’s true! This isn’t just a book of scary D&D monsters, or a bunch of spells and subclasses and magic items, or a big fantasy adventure with spooky art direction. FiveEvil does something different.

So what is this game? Why is FiveEvil even called 5E if it’s so very unlike everything else with that label?

I’m not even satisfied with that question. Let’s dig a bit deeper. How about: what even is 5E?

Now that is a question I like. Here’s what I see.

On the surface, 5E is a set of expectations, and a body of play that reinforces them.

But beneath that, at its core? 5E is a set of conceptual relationships, and a procedural language that puts them to work.

That core? If you play 5E you know stuff. You know that twenty-sided die is the oracle. You know how saying stuff about your character can lead to rolling it, and you know the emotional experience of it coming up 20, or 1, or in the middle. You know the ways your or your GM can take that number you rolled and turn it into fictional events, and how that responsibility is shared. You know how to incorporate all these things into an unfolding internal story.

You know how to do the job of playing. How to make a saving throw: what it means, what’s at risk for your character, what dice to pick up, what to look for on the character sheet, what mathematical operation to perform, what you need to say out loud to the table, what to listen for in return, what you need to write down and what just belongs in the moment, what it means for later.

You know all sorts of things like that. It all makes sense.

All of that is 5E.

The expectations? You and your buddies kill monsters and take their stuff. You go to exciting places and leap into power-appropriate challenges and get rewarded for your trouble. You have a bunch of special abilities that get better and better as you step up levels of power. You develop a big pile of hit points that gives you a cushion to suffer some outrageous fortune on your way without being disheartened. Your goal is to have fun and avoid screwing up too badly.

FiveEvil takes those conceptual relationships and keeps them central to ensure play feels understandable and familiar. But at the same time, it takes the expectations and completely upends them to ensure play feels shocking and dangerous.

And it does both things at once. That is the trick.

And that’s why I’m using 5E: because millions of gamers out there already know how to play it. There are changes here, things to learn that are unfamiliar, but the core is the game you know in your bones.

And because the things that are missing, that upend your expectations, help create the experience of horror. You’re on your own and you don’t have special abilities or magic items or a pile of hit points to help you.

FiveEvil is 5E with ‘Indie game stuff” added in, as Clive has sniffed out using his cavernous non-functional nasal cavity. But the most important indie game stuff added in is simply this: understand the game you’re playing. Understand what it does, and doesn’t, do. And that’s where you stand.

(Also, and this bears saying: I like 5E. It’s really good. This game is very much my love letter to 5E. And yes, my love letter takes the form of dismembering 5E and stitching it back together into something horrifying. Ain’t love grand!)

IMPORTANT LINKY: the FiveEvil Kickstarter page