Revenge Is A Poison is a solo journaling game in which you will document your attempts to find and kill the Crime Boss that ordered you to be poisoned to death. That poison is now slowly working through your body. You will most likely fail, but success isn’t impossible.
During the game you will roll a die, draw cards from the deck and read their associated events, pull blocks from the Jenga tower, place or remove tokens from cards, and write about your experiences in character.
Death is the most likely outcome of this game. If the Jenga tower falls, your body succumbs to the poison and you die and are unable to enact your revenge on the Crime Boss. If you draw all four Kings, you die; the last King you draw will tell you how.
To win, you must draw the Ace of Hearts and complete the task that it specifies by removing tokens from it over subsequent hours.
– Description by author
Game Description
Revenge is a Poison is based on the Wretched system designed by Chris Bissette.
It uses:
- A standard deck of 52 playing cards, with jokers removed
- A single six-sided die
- A tumbling block tower (optional)
- 10 tokens or counters
Like most Wretched games, your journal progresses until the tower falls.
Your deck of cards represents the challenges you face as the poison courses through your veins, and the 6 sided dice determine how many cards are pulled for each round of play.
Each roll of the dice represents the actions that occur within an hour of game playtime.
The 10 tokens come into play at the end of the game.
Setting the Scene / Getting into Character
As you walk out of the doctors office, you set the scene by deciding what you are wearing, the type of car you are driving, why you have been poisoned, and your starting weapon.
How to Play
The game is divided into hours. Each hour has two phases.
- The Revenge
- The Journal
The Revenge
Roll your die and draw that number of cards from the deck, keeping them face down.
A low number means the hour was uneventful, while a high number means it very busy.
Turn over the first card you drew and consult the tables of prompts. If the instructions ask you to do a specific thing, do it.
Continue turning over cards and consulting the instructions until your tasks are complete.
When you have completed all your tasks for the day, discard the cards you have used unless you are told otherwise.
The Journal
Take a moment to consider the events of the cycle:
– Your hardships and the successes.
– What you have learned about the crime boss
– What inspires you to keep going.
– How you feel as the poison courses through your veins.
Record your journal entry for the hour.
The Card Prompts
Each of the 52 cards have a unique prompt that relates to the face value, and the suit it belongs to.
Hearts are used for you to reflect on your injuries or the effect the poison is having on your body. Over the course of the game the poison will start to take its effect.
Diamond cards relate to the vehicle you are driving. Things happen to the vehicle over time, or as a result of the way you are driving. Some of the prompts are about landmarks, or things you see happening outside the vehicle.
Clubs relate to your weapon and getting revenge. You tend to kill people when these cards are drawn. Sometimes you have to justify it to yourself or others. Some of the cards make you change weapons or repair/maintain your existing one.
Finally, Spades are cards about the Enforcers who work for the Crime Boss. In most of these cards, you are fighting or evading the enforcers.
Note: I don't post actual prompts in my reviews. This is to protect the IP of the designer. You will need to buy the game to read the actual prompts.
Overall Impression
The prompts are excellent and well thought out.
The instability of the tower translates well into a slow acting poison that will eventually end up killing you.
The use of a vehicle is a nice addition. It introduces ideas and action that are not directly related to the poison.
VERDICT : HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Safety
This game includes themes of fear, suspense, despair, violence, and death.
Read and play with caution, keeping in mind that you can take a break or stop completely at any time. Your mental health is important, and this is just a game.
This game is designed to make success very difficult and very unlikely. It is meant to be challenging and harrowing and emotional. If that doesn't sound fun to you, that's absolutely fine.
If you ever draw a card that makes you uncomfortable, or that you do not want to journal about for any reason, discard it and draw a different card.
Remember that you can change, ignore, rewrite or abandon any part of this game that you want.
The Wretched
This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
THE WRETCHED™ is a trademark of Chris Bissette. If you want to make your own game, the System Reference Document (SRD) can be downloaded from the Sealed Library itch.io page
How to get the Game
Revenge Is A Poison was created by S.A. Young.
Web: https://saynoir.itch.io/revenge-is-a-poison
Twitter: @saynoir