Gravemire is a liminal southern gothic horror TTRPG.
Think of it like Hunt: Showdown but tabletop.
The PDF is 130 pages, and there's a physical book available as well. Both have clean, easy to read layouts that prioritize negative space, short written sections, and big illustrations. There's art throughout the book, in a mix of color and black and white, and while the color pieces are evocative, the black and white spots are really striking. Some have an almost Edward Gorey vibe that does a great job of communicating the precise feeling of the setting.
Lore-wise, Gravemire takes place in the late 1800s town of Scarstone Louisiana, whose swamp has recently become infinite. People with nowhere else to go arrive in Scarstone by riverboat and take jobs looking for treasure in the swamp. The swamp, meanwhile, kills them.
The swamp operates on an eerie internal logic that isn't really comprehensible to people. Sometimes it spawns monsters. Sometimes those monsters are willing to bargain with treasure-hunting intruders, but it isn't ever particularly safe.
Gameplay alternates between phases of exploring the swamp and recovering in town, with intermittent character death expected. The book even includes a small ritual to honor dead characters, which is a nice touch, and contrasts with the "walp, time to reroll" tone that other popular systems sometimes take.
The core mechanics of Gravemire are 2d12 + Skill vs target number, with Skills being sorted into tiers. Broad Skills like, say, Survival are tier 3 and very expensive to raise. Very specific Skills like Survival In Swamps On A Tuesday are much cheaper. And you can apply all relevant Skills to a roll, with ones that are only sorta related providing a reduced bonus.
Gravemire has a Willpower system that feels similar to stuff like Call Of Cthulhu's sanity system. The design intent seems to be to not make it about mental health, and the text is very clear about this, but functionally you roll against your Willpower or lose Willpower whenever you get badly scared. Dropping too low in Willpower can cause fearful events to damage your health instead, and they can also give you Aversions, which are specific triggers that cause you to automatically lose Willpower. Willpower recovery is difficult, but you recover a bit in town and characters can also roll Skills to restore it for each other once per scene.
Characters in Gravemire can use magic, but it is strictly succeed-at-a-cost. Using magic (mostly) automatically succeeds, and can produce a variety of spectacular effects, but always reduces your max health or Willpower. You can easily cast yourself into the grave, or into a state where you are unlikely to survive your next expedition into the swamp, and the only way to offset the penalties of using magic is by spending your permanent progression points to patch your health and Willpower back up, so there's little encouragement to use it for anything short of an emergency.
Combat in Gravemire is simple but fluid, with players picking from a list of actions, some of which cause their turn to end and some of which let them keep acting. Taking certain actions can cause enemies to act, as can rolling poorly on attacks or other combat maneuvers. Actual attacks ask you to split your Skill bonuses between damage and accuracy, and deal 1 damage plus whatever damage bonus you assigned, so it's possible combat might sometimes collapse into the players poking at a foe from behind the safety of their accuracy bonuses, but overall this is the smoothest PbtA style combat I've ever seen, and I especially recommend game designers check this part of the system out.
Gravemire's rules for character progression are their own detailed minigame, with characters returning to Scarstone and spending a set number of actions recovering health and Willpower, gaining new Skills, improving their stats, and learning more about the town. There are roleplaying hooks and questions built into this process, and the whole thing feels immersive in a way that levelling up usually doesn't.
For GMs and players, a lot of resources are included. There's guidance throughout, but there's also a full GMing chapter with a bestiary, GMing philosophy, rules for creating monsters, and everything else necessary to run the game short of a sample scenario. It's all clearly explained and the tone of the game is easy to lean into.
Overall, I think Gravemire is a great fit for oneshots and short campaigns for a group that likes atmosphere, character development, historical roleplaying, and only a little bit of rules crunch. It's low to zero prep and very easy to GM, and the setting is deeply flavorful. Definitely give it a chance if you're looking for something murky and eerie.
Minor Issues:
-Sift Through Scarstone and Get Something You Need both seem to provide no concrete benefit to players. I couldn't find anywhere in the book that assigned bonuses for having items, and Skills seem broadly to assume that characters have the necessary gear to use them always at hand. In a game that's play-to-lose, taking a roleplaying option at the cost of more health or Skills would make sense---you're trying to kill your character. But Gravemire's tone doesn't feel entirely play-to-lose, so it felt odd that the GM wasn't instructed to make sure something good comes of spending Letups on these.
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Gravemire is a liminal southern gothic horror TTRPG.
Think of it like Hunt: Showdown but tabletop.
The PDF is 130 pages, and there's a physical book available as well. Both have clean, easy to read layouts that prioritize negative space, short written sections, and big illustrations. There's art throughout the book, in a mix of color and black and white, and while the color pieces are evocative, the black and white spots are really striking. Some have an almost Edward Gorey vibe that does a great job of communicating the precise feeling of the setting.
Lore-wise, Gravemire takes place in the late 1800s town of Scarstone Louisiana, whose swamp has recently become infinite. People with nowhere else to go arrive in Scarstone by riverboat and take jobs looking for treasure in the swamp. The swamp, meanwhile, kills them.
The swamp operates on an eerie internal logic that isn't really comprehensible to people. Sometimes it spawns monsters. Sometimes those monsters are willing to bargain with treasure-hunting intruders, but it isn't ever particularly safe.
Gameplay alternates between phases of exploring the swamp and recovering in town, with intermittent character death expected. The book even includes a small ritual to honor dead characters, which is a nice touch, and contrasts with the "walp, time to reroll" tone that other popular systems sometimes take.
The core mechanics of Gravemire are 2d12 + Skill vs target number, with Skills being sorted into tiers. Broad Skills like, say, Survival are tier 3 and very expensive to raise. Very specific Skills like Survival In Swamps On A Tuesday are much cheaper. And you can apply all relevant Skills to a roll, with ones that are only sorta related providing a reduced bonus.
Gravemire has a Willpower system that feels similar to stuff like Call Of Cthulhu's sanity system. The design intent seems to be to not make it about mental health, and the text is very clear about this, but functionally you roll against your Willpower or lose Willpower whenever you get badly scared. Dropping too low in Willpower can cause fearful events to damage your health instead, and they can also give you Aversions, which are specific triggers that cause you to automatically lose Willpower. Willpower recovery is difficult, but you recover a bit in town and characters can also roll Skills to restore it for each other once per scene.
Characters in Gravemire can use magic, but it is strictly succeed-at-a-cost. Using magic (mostly) automatically succeeds, and can produce a variety of spectacular effects, but always reduces your max health or Willpower. You can easily cast yourself into the grave, or into a state where you are unlikely to survive your next expedition into the swamp, and the only way to offset the penalties of using magic is by spending your permanent progression points to patch your health and Willpower back up, so there's little encouragement to use it for anything short of an emergency.
Combat in Gravemire is simple but fluid, with players picking from a list of actions, some of which cause their turn to end and some of which let them keep acting. Taking certain actions can cause enemies to act, as can rolling poorly on attacks or other combat maneuvers. Actual attacks ask you to split your Skill bonuses between damage and accuracy, and deal 1 damage plus whatever damage bonus you assigned, so it's possible combat might sometimes collapse into the players poking at a foe from behind the safety of their accuracy bonuses, but overall this is the smoothest PbtA style combat I've ever seen, and I especially recommend game designers check this part of the system out.
Gravemire's rules for character progression are their own detailed minigame, with characters returning to Scarstone and spending a set number of actions recovering health and Willpower, gaining new Skills, improving their stats, and learning more about the town. There are roleplaying hooks and questions built into this process, and the whole thing feels immersive in a way that levelling up usually doesn't.
For GMs and players, a lot of resources are included. There's guidance throughout, but there's also a full GMing chapter with a bestiary, GMing philosophy, rules for creating monsters, and everything else necessary to run the game short of a sample scenario. It's all clearly explained and the tone of the game is easy to lean into.
Overall, I think Gravemire is a great fit for oneshots and short campaigns for a group that likes atmosphere, character development, historical roleplaying, and only a little bit of rules crunch. It's low to zero prep and very easy to GM, and the setting is deeply flavorful. Definitely give it a chance if you're looking for something murky and eerie.
Minor Issues:
-Sift Through Scarstone and Get Something You Need both seem to provide no concrete benefit to players. I couldn't find anywhere in the book that assigned bonuses for having items, and Skills seem broadly to assume that characters have the necessary gear to use them always at hand. In a game that's play-to-lose, taking a roleplaying option at the cost of more health or Skills would make sense---you're trying to kill your character. But Gravemire's tone doesn't feel entirely play-to-lose, so it felt odd that the GM wasn't instructed to make sure something good comes of spending Letups on these.
Much love for this amazing game, very excited about hopping into my first session soon :)