Hey all,
I’ve always enjoyed TTRPGs, but never could find the right fit for my and my friend group. After trying out a bunch of different systems, one day I took the plunge on MORK BORG and have loved it since.
My group and I love the over-the-top grimdark and find it more funny than anything else, and keeping it light on the rules lets us just enjoy the story unfolding instead of having to fiddle with arcane rules and lists of items. And then the cherry on top are the excellent tables that make rolling up further adventures super easy.
However, so far, I’ve only really been running one shots. It’s super easy for characters to die, which can make running a campaign hard, but I LOVE the idea of the Calendar of Nechrubel—a probabilistic time limit that puts proverbial Sword of Damocles on the world.
Despite how cool it seems, though, I’ve never really run a full campaign before. Anyone who has played this game or one like it, what advice could you give? What is your thought process like as you’re planning out a longer story in which the characters are more or less likely to survive?
I adore the mork borg system, but similarly have been limited to one shots as well. But one thing that stood out was that just a bit more hp dramatically improved their staying power.
Characters closer to ~10hp could survive a whole session. So my thought was to run a DCC style funnel with MB characters and have the selected survivors get better right after. They should hit that ~10hp staying power while still being squishy.
We’re playing a full campaign right now, I think on session four. Absolutely astonishingly to all involved, no one has died yet, although we’re next to broke and the one medicine box is empty now.
I think the key to running MB is to not think of it like 5e or PF2e in that many, many fights would be unwinnable, leaving the party to try to come up with creative solutions to problems instead of bonking their way through them. For example, my Pale One had Nine Violet Signs Unknot the Storm as their daily power and there were a bunch of these amphibious goblin things in a ditch filled with water. The other 3 party members went up this passageway that had a raised area, and waited on the sides, while making a ramp with a coffin lid we dragged in place. I was able to cast the spell into the water which hurt them pretty well, then ran up the passage where I was able to get up to the higher ground, two party members passed their strength checks to pull the coffin lid up after me, and we were able to kill them by pincering them in a narrow passage and the DR to hit and save were modified because of the advantages we created. Again, we’ve been super lucky w/ rolls as powers are less than 50％ likely to work just from the get-go.
In terms of characters being able to die easily, yes, but thats what scvmbirther is for.
You may want the Bestiary for Galgenback https://theillustrioussanguine.itch.io/mb-galgenbeck-bestiary
Free Galgenback Map & Events https://www.reddit.com/r/MorkBorg/comments/ixwc5r/made_a_galgenbeck_map_d6_events/
bunch of Galgenback stuff https://morkborg.exlibrisrpg.com/tags/galgenbeck
The Raining Caves for Mork borg https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/402101/The-Raining-Caves?filters=100215_0_0_0_0
I played in a one-shot at PAX East. I haven’t played it as a campaign. If I were to run it, I would lean into the doom and the calendar and the like. As with other OSR games, I would set up an overall scenario that player-characters could be easily plugged into rather than a personalized narrative. I don’t think MB would be my first choice if I were setting out to referee a campaign but I think it absolutely can work and, if I loved MB, I would not hesistate to run a campaign with it.
It is a fun game if your players are into grim dark and gothic settings