Running Vermis; or "oracular meta-fiction as roleplaying setting"
How's that for an enticing pretentious theory/tip post? Vermis & Vermis 2 are sensational, aesthetically rich and inspiring game books. They are, if you're unfamiliar, "game guides for games that don't exist"- written as picture and lore-heavy strategy guides for old pixelated dungeon-crawlers like Stonekeep and Eye of the Beholder. They take a lot of inspiration visually and tonally from Dark Souls and the bleak, gothic action rpg genre popular since the 2010s. If you're curious, I have reviews of both Vermis 1: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods and Vermis 2: Mist & Mirrors which should give a pretty clear picture. How, though, are you supposed to actually use these as gamebooks? There are a few challenges: They are systemless, using only vague stats with no explanation They are vague, hinting at the world and its denizens rather than instructing you They are disorganized, functioning as a puzzle for the reader to piece together while flipping t...