Explore the haunting world of the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game. This review dives into the Cypher System's unique folk horror, immersive gameplay, and community reactions for TTRPG fans.
Ready to step into a world where ancient mountains bleed secrets and the deep woods hold more than just shadow? The Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game plunges players into a chilling, alternate 1920s and 1930s Appalachia. This tabletop RPG springs from a hauntingly popular fiction podcast, delivering an experience far from your typical fantasy grind or epic campaigns. Instead, it's a setting steeped in folklore, cosmic dread, and the tough lives of its people. Here, family and the land are paramount, but danger lurks everywhere, making you feel as isolated and out of your depth as the characters in Deliverance.
This unique horror game is published by Monte Cook Games and runs on their narrative-focused Cypher System. Old Gods of Appalachia stands out because it focuses on personal, intimate folk horror. This means the terrifying elements hit close to home, and vast, unknowable evils are always stirring beneath the surface. The game masterfully blends the harsh realities of Appalachian life—like poverty and industrial exploitation—with encroaching supernatural threats. It provides an intense, dread-filled experience, much like the relentless, visceral horror of The Evil Dead from the 80s.
Player-Driven Rolls: Unlike many traditional RPGs where the Game Master (called the Narrator here) makes most of the dice rolls, in Old Gods of Appalachia, players do almost all the rolling. This keeps you constantly engaged in the action and the outcome of your choices.
Story-First Mechanics: The Cypher System is built for rich storytelling, not getting bogged down in complex rules. Special mechanics like "Effort" and "GM Intrusions" are designed to introduce complications and drive the narrative forward in compelling ways.
Linked Health and Resources: Your core stats—Might, Speed, and Intellect—also serve as your health and resource pools for abilities. When you take damage or push your limits, these pools decrease. This creates a tangible sense of attrition and vulnerability, essential for a horror game, much like managing dwindling resources in a survival horror video game. Every action carries weight, echoing the desperate resourcefulness of characters like Mikey and Data trying to get through traps in The Goonies.
Concept-Driven Characters: Forget rigid class lists. Character creation is streamlined into a descriptive sentence: "I am a [Descriptor] [Type] who [Focus]". This lets you build incredibly unique and thematic characters, whether you're a "Hardy Miner" or a "Mystical Sage."
Thematic "Magic" & Deep Lore: Magic in this game isn't about traditional spell lists; it's ambiguous and tied to folklore, manifested through folk charms, blessed objects, or strange moonshine. This keeps the unsettling atmosphere intact. The game is rich with lore from the podcast, detailing powers like "The Green" (nature's raw force) and "The Dark" (ancient, malevolent entities).
Escalating Dread Mechanic: An optional rule called "What Wakes Mode" allows the range for critical failures to expand during tense moments. This increases the chance of complications if things go wrong, simulating rising tension and adding to the pervasive dread as unseen forces react to your presence.
This tabletop RPG's gameplay focuses on narrative impact and player agency. Here’s a concise look at how actions are resolved:
Task Resolution: When your character attempts an action, the Narrator sets its Difficulty (from 0 for routine to 10 for impossible). You can use relevant skills, helpful circumstances (assets), or "Effort" to reduce this Difficulty. The final Difficulty is then multiplied by 3 to get the Target Number you need to meet or beat on a 20-sided die roll. Rolling a 1 might trigger a GM Intrusion, while a 20 can grant special effects.
Pools, Edge, and Effort: You have three core "Pools": Might, Speed, and Intellect. These are your primary resources. You spend points from these Pools to use abilities or apply "Effort," which reduces a task's Difficulty. Your "Edge" attribute for a Pool reduces the cost of spending points from it, potentially making "Effort" free. This resource management creates a natural sense of attrition, making you more vulnerable as your resources deplete, much like the isolated team in The Thing as their numbers (and sanity) dwindled and external threats mounted.
Cyphers: These are single-use items or abilities that grant temporary, potent effects. In Old Gods of Appalachia, they are themed as unique folk charms, blessed objects, or discovered ritual components. Narrators are advised to be mindful of how many of these players find to maintain the setting's atmosphere.
GM Intrusions (GMIs): This is a core Narrator tool to introduce unexpected complications or twists into the narrative. Often occurring on a player's roll of 1, the Narrator offers the affected player 2 XP. The player can accept the XP and the complication, or refuse it by spending 1 XP they already possess. This mechanic provides player agency in narrative setbacks and is crucial for pacing horror scenarios.
Character Arcs: Instead of purely level-based advancement, the Cypher System emphasizes narrative progression through "Character Arcs". Players choose personal goals for their characters (e.g., "Protect the Community," "Solve a Mystery"). Making progress towards these arcs earns XP, which can then be spent for character advancement. This system directly links character development to the ongoing story.
The community largely praises the game's success in creating an intense atmosphere and delivering intimate folk horror, especially for fans of the podcast. Narrators are highly encouraged to immerse themselves in the podcast's narrative voice and pacing to fully capture the mood. While the Cypher System is flexible, some discussions point out its potential to feel too "heroic" for a horror game. Solutions often involve emphasizing the resource depletion of Pools and making combat feel truly dangerous to maintain tension.
Players also note that the core rulebook's initial adversary list relies heavily on creatures directly from the podcast, which can lead to spoilers or limit original storytelling for fans. The community suggests adapting existing threats or creating new ones, drawing inspiration from Appalachian folklore or even other horror RPGs. A critical aspect emphasized is the responsible handling of sensitive historical themes present in Appalachia, such as Native American displacement and racial segregation. The core rulebook includes a Consent Checklist, and the community strongly advocates for using tools like Lines and Veils during a Session 0 to ensure all players are comfortable with the themes explored.
As someone who's seen D&D grow from old AD&D to the newer D&D 2024, Old Gods of Appalachia is very different. The rules are simpler for tasks, which is nice, but the "Pools, Edge, and Effort" system is the real game-changer. In D&D, my characters could take a lot of hits. Here, when my "Superstitious Folk Healer (Sage) who Cures What Ails Ya" used her powers to help someone, her Intellect Pool would go down. It wasn't just losing a "spell slot"; it felt like she was losing a bit of herself, making her weaker for other actions. This shows how tired and vulnerable a character in a horror story should feel. It brings to mind the growing paranoia and desperation of the isolated team in The Thing as their numbers dwindled and external threats mounted.
The "GM Intrusions" are great. In old D&D, a bad roll was just a bad roll. But here, if my character failed a Speed roll to dodge a falling roof, the Narrator might say: "The roof doesn't hit you, but your lantern goes out, and you hear something crawling nearby. Take 2 XP." I'd take the XP because suddenly being in the dark with a strange noise is much scarier than just taking damage. It's like a twist in a horror movie where the world itself turns against you, adding a lot to the story.
Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game offers a powerful and truly chilling experience, expertly leveraging the Cypher System to create a tense and dread-filled story. While it plays differently from more heroic, action-focused games, it delivers a deeply personal and immersive horror narrative. If you appreciate strong stories, crave a TTRPG where survival is often its reward, and don't mind embracing true vulnerability, Old Gods of Appalachia is worth checking out. It powerfully reminds you that the most terrifying monsters are sometimes the ones that haunt your mind and the very land around you, much like the relentless dark forces from The Evil Dead or the hidden dangers that lurk in the backwoods.=
Publisher: Monte Cook Games.
Number of Players: 2+ Players
Mechanics: role-playing
Where to Buy: Monte Cook Games website
Then hire me, a story guide, for an evening of adventure. I am a lifetime DM for hire in Central Illinois. Learn more about my DM services.
Explore the haunting world of the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game with Bound By Blackwood Blood. This review dives into the Cypher System's unique folk horror, immersive gameplay, and GM-friendly features for TTRPG fans.
