Introducing The Eye: A Magnus Archives TTRPG

Introducing The Eye RPG

The Eye is an exciting new tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) based on the popular The Magnus Archives podcast. Created by fans of the podcast, The Eye RPG allows players to immerse themselves in the chilling world of avatars, entities, and cosmic dread that the podcast has brought to life.

Capturing The Horror of The Magnus Archives

Veteran RPG designers HaveYouSeenThisDice and DiceManiacs collaborated to capture the creeping supernatural horror that makes The Magnus Archives so compelling. Whether you're a dedicated fan of the podcast or new to its mythos, The Eye RPG lets you roleplay as avatars of the entities that fuel the rituals and statements that drive the podcast's ongoing narrative.

The Eye entity features prominently, as characters take on abilities and powers related to its far-reaching vigilance and omniscience. Of course the rituals and creatures associated with other entities like The Spiral, The Stranger, and The Vast also make appearances for players to contend with.

Quick, Simple Rules For Roleplaying Dread

The Eye RPG runs on a streamlined D20 system designed to emphasize storytelling and atmosphere over complex statistics or combos. Character creation is quick, letting players pick evocative abilities like Inescapable Watcher, Ceaseless Whispers, and Piercing Gaze to represent their characters' connections to and pact with their otherworldly patrons.

Gameplay sessions focus on investigating strange statements and rituals, with frequent skill checks to uncover information or survive entities' warping influences on reality. Instead of complex battle maps, combat is abstract and deadly, simulating the helplessness characters often feel when plunged into The Magnus Archives' supernatural situations.

Bringing The Entities To Your Tabletop

Early reviews praise how The Eye RPG's mechanics bring the alien motives and bizarre powers of The Magnus Archives' entities to the gaming table. The FishManDice YouTube channel called it "a rules-light gem" that rewards players for embracing cosmic horror themes. The OnDie20 podcast said "the madness and rituals elements are so evocative for Magnus fans while still being welcoming to newcomers."

The Eye RPG's launch edition focuses on letting players take on the roles of avatars, but its creators HaveYouSeenThisDice and DiceManiacs have hinted at plans to create supplemental material expanding on the entities and rituals at the heart of the Magnus mythos. Whether this means sourcebooks for running entire campaigns centered around a single entity or modules placing characters at the mercy of some of the podcast's most notorious incidents, future support for The Eye RPG promises to terrify gamers even further.

Bringing The Powers Of The Eye To Your Game

For gamers intrigued by The Eye RPG, the core rulebook details everything needed to bring the intrinsic dread of The Magnus Archives' world to game night. Character options let you play a range of avatars, from marked academics to reborn murder victims to true believers in the entities' callous plans for humanity.

The Rulebook Contains:

• Complete rules for creating characters aligned with the entities, including their abilities, attacks, and inherent "gifts" from their otherworldly patrons
• In-depth detail on performing rituals to further the entities' interests and bring their alien realities closer to the characters' world
• A starter adventure, "Presence Felt", that has characters caught in the crossfire between The Eye and The Stranger
• "The History of a Statement" campaign framework for telling episodic stories about characters relatings tales of rituals, monsters, and brushes with cosmic purpose to the board of The Magnus Institute

Gamers report that The Eye RPG's flexible narrative structure makes it ideal for slowly building a sense of atmospheric dread punctuated by bursts of terror and the uncanny. The assumptions built into the world and entities by The Magnus Archives podcast let the game focus on mystery and developing a dawning realization of humanity's insignificance rather than memorizing extensive lore.

Tips For Running A Terrifying Campaign

While the core book gives keepers and game masters plenty of tools for scaring their players, recurring Magnus Archives motifs like manipulation, infiltration, and misunderstanding take on special weight in an interactive roleplaying context.

Lean on secrets, hard choices, and degrees of transformation or harm rather than outright destruction to make sure characters - and players - question their resolve and solidarity as the campaign progresses. Let players drive their own characters' descent on the path that seemed sensible at first. The uncertainty about who knows what and shifting loyalties tap straight into the podcast's most unsettling themes.

Expanding The Mythos With Fan-Made Content

The Magnus Archives' convoluted lore and myriad domains of fear feel tailor-made for an RPG treatment, and The Eye RPG fan community has already started exploring expansions to its rules.

Avatar Alternatives

While the core rules focus on playing avatars of the entities, some clever variations on character creation give players more options:

• "Unwilling Avatars" are more reluctant tools of the entities, granting some of their patrons' characteristic powers but also ways to temporarily resist or mitigate them.
• "Ritualists" have learned to tap into entities' abilities via ritual magic rather than direct pacts. Thisbuilds on the hints within the podcast around repeat rituals warping reality in specific locations.
• "Monsters" let you play some of the entities' more physical incarnations like anglerfish, not-them mimics, or the gruesome flesh hive. Some keeper discretion required!

New Entities And Domains

The Eye RPG lends itself well to bringing in entities outside the core few detailed in early episodes of The Magnus Archives. Ambitious archivists have put together unofficial guides to running games centered around The Corruption, The Slaughter, alternative takes on The Stranger, and more.

One intrepid podcaster has even adapted White Wolf's famous Vampire: The Masquerade games to run a "Magnus Archives with fangs and waistcoats" campaign powered by fan-made continue sheets turning vampires into their own entities.

With its sharp, simple rules and the rich horror backdrop of the Magnus mythos to draw on, The Eye RPG seems poised to build an devoted fanbase for gaming fans of esoteric terror and unknowable forces.

FAQs

What is the basic premise of The Eye RPG?

The Eye RPG adapts the world of The Magnus Archives podcast into a tabletop roleplaying game. Players take on the roles of characters who have made pacts with powerful entities and can perform strange rituals. Gameplay revolves around experiencing and investigating the entities' ominous influence on reality.

What kind of stories can you tell with The Eye RPG?

The Eye lends itself well to episodic stories based around rituals, cursed objects, strange disappearances, and discovering unsettling truths about how the world really works. Games capture the same atmosphere of esoteric cosmic horror as The Magnus Archives podcast that inspired it.

How complicated are the rules?

The Eye RPG uses an easy-to-learn D20 system focused on narrative storytelling rather than combat statistics or mechanics mastery. Character creation is simple and gameplay emphasizes mystery, tension, and sudden shocks rather than complex tactical battles.

Do you need to listen to the podcast to play?

You can enjoy The Eye RPG without listening to The Magnus Archives first, but fans of the podcast will recognize more references. The game is very approachable for newcomers though, since the world is created as play progresses rather than requiring extensive backstory knowledge.