It’s a cold, dark, and wet Welsh morning as I load my friends into the car and head east. London is calling and we have tickets to Dragonmeet! After getting lost and eventually having to make a Dukes of Hazzard style exit from the car, we make it into the hall. My compatriots are popping their convention cherry, so we make a quick tour of the layout and I let them explore on their own – I have some schmoozing to do!

After taking the time to catch up with a few industry friends, win a baby owlbear mini, and digging through the hoard of zines at the Beyond Cataclysm booth (i’ll tell you about one of my finds there at later time), I eventually spot a booth with the one guaranteed sign of a good TTRPG – a stack of audio cassettes! You see, what an audio cassette will tell you is that the designer gives a shit about the vibe. Ever since Nilsson & Nohr tore the RPG scene a new asshole with Mork Borg, it’s become extremely evident just how important tone, vibe, and flavour are to a game; and designers are catching on!

Enter MacGuffin & Co’s Pitcrawler. A rules light TTRPG for two players. That’s right – two. Not two and a GM, just two. One of you is the GM and the other is the protagonist. Play it with your partner, create bedtime campaigns with your kid,, pass the time on a road-trip, or adventure with your nan over tuesday afternoon tea.

I should start with somewhat of a caveat. Although Pitcrawler is a classic TTRPG in most of its elements – it had a GM, a player, character sheets, dice, stories with wizards, fantasy world, fights with enemies etc – it is, in many ways, closer to a choose-your-own-adventure book. The introduction to the rulebook is even presented as such. It’s designed around the concept that the player is the reader and the GM is the book – which sounds like the kind of epiphany a stoner might have at 2AM; “Woah dude, a Games Master is just a living version of an adventure book!” But yes, that’s exactly what Pitcrawler leans into, and it does it extremely well!

The player gets a character sheet with stats and a slot based inventory system, which has always been my favourite way of dealing with carry weight, and your stats (face, feet, fingers, fists, and heart) all increase the size of the dice used as you level up – a simple rules-lite system that puts the mechanics secondary to the story. There’s a nice companions mechanic which simply allows them to add bonuses to rolls and challenges. You’ll pick up companions on the way (whether that be a rogue to help with locks, your noble steed, or a pet mouse to keep in your pocket) and they sit in the background until you need them – no excess management or deciding what they do on “their turn”. 

Character creation is a short run through some tables to randomly generate everything, but the game encourages you to make choices to justify certain stats and equipment; it’s your character after all right? The end of character creation runs you through the rules of the game, before introducing you to its most interesting mechanic – thumbs!

So you remember how I said this game leaned into the Fighting Fantasy book feel? Well the thumbs mechanic allows you keep your thumb on a page before you make a choice. Don’t like the outcome? Simply flip back to where your thumb was! You create a little save point (the GM writes down your current HP) and you can go back to it. Your only limitations are a completed (pass or fail) skill check, or 10 minutes in real-time. A really novel mechanic for those curious adventurers who want to see what happens if they poke the sleeping dragon, but also takes a bit of weight away from the unforgiving nature of the old fantasy adventure books. 

Alright, let’s stop talking about the rules and get into the world of Pitcrawler. The setting is classic grim fantasy – bearded wizards, skull shaped mountains, and shady looking guys in tavern corners. Did I mention wizards? There’s a lot of them, and they’re all bastards. Every single one of them. They rule over all kingdoms and planes, and you’ll never be one of them. All creatures and beings of the world are completely under the boot of these overlords, and only the already rich and powerful can train to become one of them… wait, does this sound familiar? It should. The world is a complete allegory of capitalism and authoritarian government, and the GM is Steve Ignorant. We’re all just pitcrawlers to the rulers of this land. 

So what about playing it? Well that all depends on if you’re creating your own thing or following one of the multiple campaigns available. The GM knows what’s in the room and the players asks questions, makes decisions, and rolls some dice. As the GM you have a story and and adventure, and the player is exploring it. It’s super simple and super fun. But its also a really great way of working on your writing chops. 

If you’re writing a novel or a campaign for a bigger TTRPG, your partner or friend can help you work through the story for interesting interpretations. Instead of just binging yet another mildly entertaining Netflix show, watching reruns of cooking shows, or spending hours combing through your record collection for something you’re only going to listen to one side of – you can explore a new world together with minimal effort and lots of laughs.

Pitcrawler has become a book that always sits on our coffee table in our house. It’s something we can jump back into at any time; “So, have you decided what you want to do with that hogtied kobold yet?” AJ Laveaux.

If you like what we do and want to help us keep the lights on and the podcasting mics warm, we’d appreciate it if you bought us a cup of coffee