Preview: After The Rain

Rain can bring so much destruction and it is also necessary for life to go one. Rain is a sign of change as it alters the landscape we all live in. Humankind has tried to harness the rain but has never been able to fully tame it. There is a storm coming to kickstarter soon and how will you be changed After the Rain?

Launching this February After the Rain published by Dorks and Desks will drop you into a fully open narrative RPG. Kyle Ott has put together a simple and effective framework to tell your story in. Your adventure will happen over three acts transforming your players as the story continues. The longer you are exposed to The Rain the more you will lose your memories, experiences, and the things that make you who you are. Will the changes be for the good or will the players succumb to the rain and be robbed of who they were?

Most role playing games see what happens as you progressively ad more and more to your player's characters. After the Rain takes a fresh new perspective on RPGs and sees what happens when things are taken away from the players. The setting of After the Rain is a small backwater town where this town is and what surrounds it and is in it is all up to you. There is nothing saying you cant be in the future or in an viking village.

After the Rain takes a fresh new perspective on RPGs and sees what happens when things are taken away from the players.

The game sets up in a super easy 3 step process. First you pick your setting. Then you choose the goal. Finally you create the players characters.

Building characters is also easy in this game. Each player first rolls four 6 sided dice. Three of these numbers will be assigned to your three facets.The facets represent aspects of your character's life. These can include things like your profession or your characters irresistible urges. These are the things that make you, you. The higher the die value assigned to the facet the larger role this facet plays in your life. The facets are the heart of the system and create a lot of the prompts for the storytelling. Characters also choose a relationship to at least one other character. This builds bonds between the players and helps them create the story with the game master. The group then creates a common goal to achieve this is going to be the focal point of the game.

The rain is one of the primary challenges in the game.

So what is the rain? The rain is one of the primary challenges in the game. The rain is the agent that takes away the players memories. The rain is also actual rain. The rain can be a physical obstacle washing out roads to make the journey harder but it can also take away point values from your facets as you loose your memory of who you are.

The game is played in three acts and as you go through the acts create increasingly harder circumstances for the players to contend with all the while they will be losing their grip on who they are by loosing facet points. When you get to zero you have no recollection of what you role the facet played in your life.

After the Rain is an innovative light weight narrative focused one shot role-playing game that will take you on an introspective adventure. This would be a great change of pace for almost any group that needs to a fresh new approach to role-playing. After the Rain will be on kick starter in February 2022 and is defiantly worth a look if you seek something new.

Players: 3-6

Year Published: 2022

Transparency Statement

A sample pre-production PDF and all the images were provided to Bert's Tabletop Games by Desks and Dork for review purposes. Final products may vary from what is portrayed in this article. We will be receiving a copy after the kickstarter fulfills.