We mean more developed, more interesting, more deeply bonded, and so on. The conflicts faced within the Darkest House frequently derive from the characters’ fears, loves, bonds, and ideals. (And, spoiler alert: facing these things is key to escaping the house. Just don’t tell your players that right away.) As they face these dangerous challenges, the players will have to call upon—or build—details of their characters’ psyche, motivations, and backstory. Even the player who just hits things with their axe is going to come away having thought about their character more, and having developed just a smidge of backstory, simply by exploring this house.

Last updated: March 16, 2021 12:01

The original version of the house, when the Kickstarter launched, consisted of about four dozen rooms—amounting to an estimated 30 or 40 hours of play for most groups. It has grown since then, through stretch goals—and will probably grow some more!

You’ll have enough material to run many sessions within the house. It is much more than a one-shot. (You can use it for one-shot adventures, of course. With so much content, you could do that several times and never repeat a room or encounter.) More likely, you’ll integrate it into your campaign and, after the PCs escape its clutches, return to it later—perhaps many times.

It’s also worth noting that there’s a lot of replayability in the house. An encounter that unfolds a particular way the first time your PCs run into it may go very differently should they return to the same room in the future.

The house is not a mega-dungeon to be delved and plundered. It’s not a campaign setting, or even an adventure path. But it’s a lot more than a single adventure, and it will make all of those things better, while giving you an extended play experience.

Last updated: March 24, 2021 14:10

The short answer: Very easily.

The House System isn’t very crunchy; it’s designed to represent your character’s abilities faithfully, but in a simplified manner that keeps the emphasis on what your character is experiencing rather than the stats.

If you can quantify a character ability, you can easily convert it to your House System version of your character. (And if you can’t, it’s probably even easier. If you can climb walls in your normal game system, well, that ability just lets you climb walls in the house as well.)

The Darkest House will give you much more detailed and specific instructions, of course, but the upshot is that it’s a universal conversion system, not a series of conversion rules for individual game systems. It goes quickly, it’s easy, and it works with virtually every RPG system in existence. The house plays by its own rules, and you’ll have everything you need to play with it.

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

The short answer is yes: No matter how you play online, if your platform allows you to share resources such as maps, images, and handouts, you’ll be able to use The Darkest House. It makes it easy to grab those items and upload them to the platform of your choice.

Every platform has different specifics, of course. But The Darkest House gives you resources that are pretty universal in their specs, and easy to share, making it compatible with pretty much any system for gaming online.

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

The technical challenge of building an entirely new form of RPG product encouraged us to focus on basics—a product that could reach the most gamers without too much extra complication. That said, a Linux version isn’t out of the question, if the project is sufficiently successful.

The needs of the product and the experience we’re looking to provide GMs makes mobile a much less likely prospect. We don’t believe we can deliver a good GMing experience from your phone, or even any but the largest of tablets. Given that online GMs overwhelmingly run their games from desktop (or laptop) environments, and the heightened technical challenges of developing for mobile, we have opted not to go in that direction.

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

Monte’s “director’s commentary” video will be recorded, and you’ll be able to watch it at your convenience!

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

Information on shipping rates, processes, and policies are here: https://www.montecookgames.com/kickstarter-reward-redemption-and-fulfillment/

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

No. The Darkest House isn’t just a digital-only product–it’s optimized to make the most of online play. It takes maximum advantage of the strengths of the online environment, and of the interactive format.

You can certainly use The Darkest House when gaming in person. Many of the features that make it so easy to GM would continue to shine when playing in person (the GM would need a laptop at the game table, however.) But a physical format would undermine the advantages of the product, while not delivering any particular benefit in play.

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

The Darkest House relies on a server, and you need an internet connection to use it. (Of course, you need an internet connection for online gaming in general.) About half of the overall content of The Darkest House is server based. Without access to the server, you cannot use The Darkest House.

This server-based approach has many advantages, such as improving the sharability of images and other elements and limiting the size of the download when you initially purchase it. The most important advantage is that it allows us to maintain, improve, or even expand the house, with those changes automatically populating your app the next time you open it.

Does that mean you lose your product if Monte Cook Games decides, some day, to stop maintaining the server? Possibly. But we have a proven track record as a strong business and a complete commitment to keeping The Darkest House (and possibly future titles based on the same new product format) going. Should that ever change, we would ensure that everyone who owns The Darkest House receives a version that includes all content, so they won’t be in danger of losing full use of their investment.

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

As the product currently stands, no. We’re always interested in new features to explore, so it’s something we’ll investigate. But our plan to deliver The Darkest House to you in May limits our ability to make large changes to the way it functions.

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48

The Darkest House works on all modern versions of MacOS and Windows. If you have any doubts about your particular computer, simply download the preview version, from here on the Kickstarter page.

The Darkest House is built for MacOS and Windows. Support for other operating systems (such as Chrome OS or Linux) isn’t out of the question, but it’s not something we can promise at this time.

Last updated: March 31, 2021 10:48