SUNKEN - An RPG of Nautical Horrors - Review

This distillation of the dichotomy of siren’s allure and abyssal...

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The game is overall great, but I thought the scenarios were a little too obvious in their inspiration, to the point of worrying that players would quickly arrive at “oh, this is ALIEN but on the sea;” “oh, this is THE THING but on the sea.” I would’ve liked to see a little more originality in the scenarios.

dysjunct wrote: The game is overall great, but I thought the scenarios were a little too obvious in their inspiration, to the point of worrying that players would quickly arrive at “oh, this is ALIEN but on the sea;” “oh, this is THE THING but on the sea.” I would’ve liked to see a little more originality in the scenarios.

Agreed- especially the ALIEN -esque scenario. As soon as the 'chest bursting' occurs then it's deeply obvious what has transpired. The twist on THE THING was cool enough though and I thought it rendered things wildly different in execution with that weird collective and plenty of room to make it your own, but then we're back to a fairly rote BIOSHOCK indebted scenario for the third.

It's important to note his eagerness to own up to all this though during the pre-amble to each scenario and in a way it's not so different to any number of 'you must prevent the dark forces from breaching the seal yaddyadda' type jaunts you get in D&D et al but yeah-this reliance on such familiar themes for its adventures is 100% the books biggest flaw. Apparently a 'bonus zine' is in the works for backers when the physical run goes out so perhaps we'll see something more unique amongst its pages.