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Never Going Home
Never Going Home is a party-focused role-playing game set in horror haunted trenches during the First World War.
Party-Focused: Never Going Home uses the +One System to focus play and growth on what an individual character can do as part of the larger story that follows a group of soldiers called a Unit. Individual characters may depart regularly as they die from injuries or collapse into madness due to forces from beyond the Veil. Characters are quick to create, so players should expect to re-join the story portraying a new member of the Unit. Each character can have their own heroic moments, but the story of the Unit is the focus.
Horror-Haunted: The Veil between worlds has been opened by the slaughter from the war; and the monstrous Whispers of beings wholly alien to humanity can now be heard. Some people have listened to the Whispers enough to gain arcane powers and now struggle to maintain control as their minds and bodies begin to change. Others are too far gone, mutated into barely-recognizable versions of their former selves. War consumes the days and monsters stalk the nights. Not even dreams are
safe. Players manage their characters’ mental and emotional resources with a dwindling hand of cards.
The First World War: The setting is the real Earth and the characters are all humans. A terrible new element has been added to the war, but the true horrors of the real war are part of the story as well. The game is set in the years between when the Veil was torn in 1916 and when the war really ended in 1918. The focus is on the front-line soldiers who are fighting and experiencing the worst of the magic and monsters. There is some mention made of, but little exploration of, the “home fronts” of any of the belligerents and civilians only appear in passing.
Party-Focused: Never Going Home uses the +One System to focus play and growth on what an individual character can do as part of the larger story that follows a group of soldiers called a Unit. Individual characters may depart regularly as they die from injuries or collapse into madness due to forces from beyond the Veil. Characters are quick to create, so players should expect to re-join the story portraying a new member of the Unit. Each character can have their own heroic moments, but the story of the Unit is the focus.
Horror-Haunted: The Veil between worlds has been opened by the slaughter from the war; and the monstrous Whispers of beings wholly alien to humanity can now be heard. Some people have listened to the Whispers enough to gain arcane powers and now struggle to maintain control as their minds and bodies begin to change. Others are too far gone, mutated into barely-recognizable versions of their former selves. War consumes the days and monsters stalk the nights. Not even dreams are
safe. Players manage their characters’ mental and emotional resources with a dwindling hand of cards.
The First World War: The setting is the real Earth and the characters are all humans. A terrible new element has been added to the war, but the true horrors of the real war are part of the story as well. The game is set in the years between when the Veil was torn in 1916 and when the war really ended in 1918. The focus is on the front-line soldiers who are fighting and experiencing the worst of the magic and monsters. There is some mention made of, but little exploration of, the “home fronts” of any of the belligerents and civilians only appear in passing.
- GenresRole Playing Games
122 pages, Paperback
Published July 31, 2019
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 25, 2021
What if World War I had monsters and miracles? That's the basic rub of this RPG which uses dice and card mechanics with very deadly combat.
MY GRADE: B plus.
MY GRADE: B plus.
March 1, 2022
The Great War rages across the globe. Europe sees suffering unknown on the continent in near 400 years. The brutal trench warfare and the industrial-scale weaponry kill tens of thousands of every day while neither side can advance their trenches further than a few yards. It comes to a head at The Battle of the Somme. A brilliant light fills the sky over No Man's Land, blinding the combatants. When it fades, many of the soldiers hear whispers and strange monsters stalk the trenches.
This is the Weird World War I setting of Never Going Home. In the immediate wake of the Somme all sides attempt to harness this new magical energy for their purposes even as the intelligence behind that magic attempts to use them in turn. To court the Whispers from beyond the Veil is to risk corruption but in a war that has already stripped the humanity from its belligerents, what does it matter if you become a monster? You were already one to begin with.
The mechanics are a pretty simple dice pool of 6-siders with 5s and 6s denoting success. You need a number of successes equal to the target number derived based on circumstances. In combat, the party can band together to contribute successes for a single attack which is a rather elegant way of allowing the party to team up to take on giant monsters that could tear them apart individually. Additionally, you can modify a roll in a number of ways based on the attribute in question (Adding dice, adding pips to a die, rerolling dice, etc). Each mission begins with a journey decided by playing cards and this makes up most of the mission and the cards played determine the encounters. A given mission should only take an hour.
The overall product is pretty good. The only downside is that the rules are not terribly well written and it could have used more and more concise examples of play. It was really hard to visualize how everything worked with how it's written and laid out. I think I could stumble through playing it and be more confident on the second try but the first may be rough. Additionally there are frequent typographic errors and this is a small indie project so its forgivable but it seems like they would have fixed it in the time between the release of the kickstarter and when I ordered a PoD copy.
But, it's fantastic. I also love the in-character journal entries, letters, and telegrams sprinkled throughout. One story involves a back and forth between real Field Marshal Douglas Haig and the British home office. Haig is trying to harness the Whispers for the war effort and failing. It seems Haig was as incompetent at magic in this universe as he was at being a general. The other story follows a unit of British troops who become aware of the Others and eventually go AWOL, vowing to stop it themselves. The officer class of their regiment has been taken over by the Others and they'll kill every officer if they have to. There's excellent drama in these notes and they add a lot to flesh out the setting. They letters give plenty of justification for theoretically opposing nationalities to be teamed into the same unit. Each nationality comes with a brief description of its real-world participation in World War I which branches at the Somme and the entry of the horror elements in to the conflict. Probably set in 1917 just after the Americans arrive. They knew their audience so you have to have playable Americans even though Nationality has no mechanical effects. I would probably set a campaign in the wake of the Somme and keep the yanks out, myself.
But it's a solid game with some striking interior artwork. Every character, even the dogs, sports a creepy gas mask. There's one image in particular that I like of four soldiers from varying nationalities and equipment standing in a pool of blood. Reflect in that pool are images of their corrupted selves. It's fantastic.
This is the Weird World War I setting of Never Going Home. In the immediate wake of the Somme all sides attempt to harness this new magical energy for their purposes even as the intelligence behind that magic attempts to use them in turn. To court the Whispers from beyond the Veil is to risk corruption but in a war that has already stripped the humanity from its belligerents, what does it matter if you become a monster? You were already one to begin with.
The mechanics are a pretty simple dice pool of 6-siders with 5s and 6s denoting success. You need a number of successes equal to the target number derived based on circumstances. In combat, the party can band together to contribute successes for a single attack which is a rather elegant way of allowing the party to team up to take on giant monsters that could tear them apart individually. Additionally, you can modify a roll in a number of ways based on the attribute in question (Adding dice, adding pips to a die, rerolling dice, etc). Each mission begins with a journey decided by playing cards and this makes up most of the mission and the cards played determine the encounters. A given mission should only take an hour.
The overall product is pretty good. The only downside is that the rules are not terribly well written and it could have used more and more concise examples of play. It was really hard to visualize how everything worked with how it's written and laid out. I think I could stumble through playing it and be more confident on the second try but the first may be rough. Additionally there are frequent typographic errors and this is a small indie project so its forgivable but it seems like they would have fixed it in the time between the release of the kickstarter and when I ordered a PoD copy.
But, it's fantastic. I also love the in-character journal entries, letters, and telegrams sprinkled throughout. One story involves a back and forth between real Field Marshal Douglas Haig and the British home office. Haig is trying to harness the Whispers for the war effort and failing. It seems Haig was as incompetent at magic in this universe as he was at being a general. The other story follows a unit of British troops who become aware of the Others and eventually go AWOL, vowing to stop it themselves. The officer class of their regiment has been taken over by the Others and they'll kill every officer if they have to. There's excellent drama in these notes and they add a lot to flesh out the setting. They letters give plenty of justification for theoretically opposing nationalities to be teamed into the same unit. Each nationality comes with a brief description of its real-world participation in World War I which branches at the Somme and the entry of the horror elements in to the conflict. Probably set in 1917 just after the Americans arrive. They knew their audience so you have to have playable Americans even though Nationality has no mechanical effects. I would probably set a campaign in the wake of the Somme and keep the yanks out, myself.
But it's a solid game with some striking interior artwork. Every character, even the dogs, sports a creepy gas mask. There's one image in particular that I like of four soldiers from varying nationalities and equipment standing in a pool of blood. Reflect in that pool are images of their corrupted selves. It's fantastic.
December 5, 2020
Un estupendo manual de rol que nos propone una Primera Guerra Mundial terrorífica (más aún), pues se encuentra regada de monstruos, brujería, aliens y todo lo que podáis imaginar. Partiendo de la batalla de Somme en la que se derrama miles y miles de vidas, se produce una rasgadura en lo que se llama Velo, una especie de barrera que separa nuestra dimensión de otra en la que habitan los otros. Todas las barbaridades cometidas a lo largo de la historia se han producido para intentar rasgar el velo y traer estas abominaciones dimensionales. Pese a que la inspiración parece muy propia de Lovecraft, aquí nos olvidamos de los mitos de Cthulhu y esos complejos e incomprensibles planes de las deidades alienígenas, en Never Going Home los monstruos solo son depredadores.
La batalla de Somme y la quebradura del velo cambia la historia y entonces aquí se convierte en un juego distópico con infinitas posibilidades en este contexto de Primera Guerra Mundial con sangre, barro, lágrimas y muchas máscaras de gas.
El sistema de juego OneSystem me ha parecido bastante sencillo de jugar, muy ambientado a partidas con bastante acción y dificultad. Se le añade también una dinámica de baraja de cartas, las cuales son fundamentales para sobrevivir y subir niveles. La subida de niveles tampoco es muy necesaria porque el juego está orientado a los One-Shot. He echado algo en falta de trasfondo y de la vida en las trincheras y básicamente un poco de contexto socio-histórico. En líneas generales, gran juego.
La batalla de Somme y la quebradura del velo cambia la historia y entonces aquí se convierte en un juego distópico con infinitas posibilidades en este contexto de Primera Guerra Mundial con sangre, barro, lágrimas y muchas máscaras de gas.
El sistema de juego OneSystem me ha parecido bastante sencillo de jugar, muy ambientado a partidas con bastante acción y dificultad. Se le añade también una dinámica de baraja de cartas, las cuales son fundamentales para sobrevivir y subir niveles. La subida de niveles tampoco es muy necesaria porque el juego está orientado a los One-Shot. He echado algo en falta de trasfondo y de la vida en las trincheras y básicamente un poco de contexto socio-histórico. En líneas generales, gran juego.
April 30, 2023
The art is among the best of the current generation of RPGs, and the playing card-driven, participatory narrative system forces the players to take a large role in creating the demon-infected world as they explore it.
May 2, 2025
Trochę było w nim niestyczności odnośnie mechaniki, ale fabuła jest świetna. Po pierwszej rozgrywce uważam, że można wiele z nim zrobić. Polecam.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews