I’ve just returned from the Prignitz in Germany, where a few days playing games in a Schloss have left me full of ideas for the hobby. The Kraken is a boutique gaming retreat – if you’re at all interested in a diverse set of games with international players, join the mailing list and come and join us.

And I got to play three new (to me) games – all facilitated by other GMs, and all great. This is, I guess, a sort-of review – but full disclosure, I haven’t read these games, only played them – which is the opposite to how most RPG reviews work, but no less (more?) valid. This is a three-part post; I’ll take each game in turn, tell you about it, what I really liked (and was less keen on, if anything) – and crucially, would I play it again.

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Royal Blood

Royal Blood is a “Tarot Heist Game” from Rowan Rook and Decard; one-shot only, improvised at the table, set in a cool magical-adjacent world. You lay out major arcana to plot your heist and the obstacles you face, then use your character’s abilities to overcome them with card flips.

The actual gameplay works well, but we had to carefully step through it as we encountered a few edge cases and bits where the rules didn’t seem as clear as we’d hoped. I think they were there somewhere, but we struggled navigating them at the table sometimes,

What I Really Liked – Despite all this, it was a really satisfying heist structure – the setting clearly has some great ideas, and being able to make it appear in broad brush strokes from the cards meant we had a satisfying session. We’re keen to get back to this again – it might feature on Unconventional GMs so we can demonstrate the rules we struggled with!

What I Was Less Keen On – There’s a bit of pulling the plot out of whole cloth that make this a bit taxing for the Facilitator, I’d imagine. Each card has multiple interpretations given in the text, but these are quite broad and sometimes presented us with too many options to try and fit our story and setting (oh so this card can represent a meeting-place, a wild animal, or a hat? I exaggerate, but it wasn’t far from this).

Would I play it again? – Oh absolutely. I’m confident we’d be smoother and more satisfying the second time around. Being able to play and worry less about the rule and getting it right would help, too – and I think a tighter scope for the session might help deal with the multiple options issue.