Underside, Tattered capes and Broken masks
But who blogs about the indie blogs?
Genre: Dark Cape
Touchstones: Watchmen, Worm, Astro City,
What is this game?: Underside is a TTRPG about playing a messy team of unwilling superheroes... achieving things. with great difficulty
How's the gameplay?: Underside's gameplay is its core draw, as the game is very, very deep. Its at its core still a narrative-focused game that tries to spread the work evenly between the players and the GM. I could go on and on about its deeper systems such as reputation, Lair actions, Stunts, its clearly Eidolon-inspired power creation. But instead I think I'll just share my favorite bit of its character creation, which is the "Origin" phase. In effect: players all write different character backstories, usually 2 per, and then place those backstories into a hat. Then, everyone draws from the hat their character's backstory, and needs to make their power and character around what was assigned to them. This system means that you have very little control over your own character, as is life, and as such might often have your hand forced when making a character. This sounds scary, but trust me, its loads of fun!
What's the setting (If any) like?: There's a few sample settings, one is a very fun Latin American Disco Elysium-inspired one, but the game's deliberately setting agnostic, part of the fun IS building your own setting!
What's the tone?: Underside is a fairly dark and gritty game. Its very materialistic about the whole thing, so don't expect Worm levels of misery porn, but its basis are all still incredibly grim and dire stories about awful people doing awful things.
Session length: From my experience sessions tend to run a little longer. get 4-5 hours set up before playing this one...
Number of Players: I've found it works best with 4 or so players, more is probably possible. Please do not try to solo this one.
Malleability: As said above, the game does not have a setting, but it does have a very defined tone. Do with that as you wish
Resources: There is a fairly good online character sheet.
Underside is a game that can most be compared to Math Rock, it is a game for those of you who are massive nerds about game design, and I recommend anyone who wishes to get into the space to give it a look. Its also just incredibly fun even underneath its deeply purposeful design and interesting mechanics.