Dip into The Well!

The Well is a roleplaying zine with a complete, rules-light narrative-focused game and the ingredients for a long form story campaign. 

We set out to create a ruleset with a few key ingredients - we wanted something:

• Tactile, with pieces players can hold instead of dice
• Minimalist, with rules that get out of the way
• Prep-friendly for GMs who like thinking ahead and being surprised at the table

The system we created supported a year long campaign through the ages of myth and we can't wait to see what you do with it!

Filling the Well

Each game will be driven by unique Story Tokens that the GM and players contribute to a shared pool, mixed in the larger pool of tokens that represent a balance of power in the world. The GM takes some time between sessions to link ideas and inspiration to each of the unique Story Tokens. During play the GM can see when players have these tokens in hand and quickly review their notes, so that when the Story Token is played they can weave in the connected ideas. That one play might trigger a subtle ongoing effect, a surprising twist, or a world-changing event!

Every session the makeup of The Well evolves - Tokens played and avoided are matched into the pool and the GM can add more Story Tokens based on their ongoing prep. 

The Well in play

The Zine

24 pages including the example setup and notecards on the covers, plus an extra file with printable extras. While The Well looks great as a big bowl brimming with glass beads and trinkets, we can't quite pack all that in an envelope or digital file - this Zinequest edition includes a tear-out sheet with tokens and note sheets to plan your sessions.