The Game of

Xor’Veil is a game which combines the worlds of pulp fantasy adventure with the style of classic noir movies. It does this by adopting a film like structure with rules for dramatic scenes, fight scenes, and investigations scenes. This is designed to work hand-in-hand to make an accessible system which blends theme and rules in order to create exciting stories and memorable experiences.

The PRINCIPLES of xor’veil

The guiding principles behind Xor’Veil’s creation and design are accessibility, depth and harmony between gameplay and story.

ACCESSIBILITY

Role-playing games are a fantastic hobby which are capable of appealing to a wide audience with a diverse array of interests. All sorts of people like stories, they like playing games, they like getting invested in characters, play acting and getting together to have fun with their friends. So why is tabletop roleplaying so inaccessible to so many?

Accessibility imagery

A lot of this is self-imposed. From its beginning, many games were developed by gamers, for other gamers. These games were often unreadable to outsiders, who found page after page of unfamiliar terminology, intricate rules and dense text off-putting.

Xor’Veil addresses this in several ways. It uses a lot of visual language – both in terms of illustration and iconography. This means that new or complex concepts can be introduced quickly and easily. A picture is, after all, worth a thousand words and, if given the choice, most people would rather look at a lovely picture than read a wall of description.

Accessibility for new players

This is also why Xor’Veil uses the language of movies and television. As almost all players will have at least a passing familiarity with them, this gives everyone a common knowledge base to build on. Not only does this put beginning and experienced role-players on an even level, it also has the bonus effect of making everyone feel like their characters are the stars of their new favourite movie or tv show.

Accessible storytelling

Thirdly, Xor’Veil offers many different ways to play. To people unfamiliar with role-playing, it can sometimes feel as though all games are about the same thing: a bunch of adventurers going on quests to kill things and loot the corpses. There’s nothing wrong with this, and it can be a hell of a lot of fun, but it’s only natural that different people would want to play through different types of stories.

The world of Xor’Veil is complex and detailed, with a wide and diverse range of settings, cultures and character types. It also features an array of adaptable and modular systems for almost any kind of story you can imagine! This means that, no matter who you are, Xor’Veil has an adventure to suit you, whether you dream of investigating mysteries, building a criminal empire, navigating the murky world of courtly intrigue or state politics, daring the tides of fortune in the name of forbidden love, setting off on daring expeditions to uncharted lands or achieving fame, fortune and notoriety in the big city, these are all options. And if you want to kill stuff and loot corpses, you can do that too!

Depth

Xor’Veil is an adaptable system with a modular design which lets you go as heavy or as light as you need to play the games you want to play. Games can be as simple and easy as a one-off pick-up adventure, or as complex as a series covering multiple ‘seasons’ with an extensive ensemble cast.

Depth and Design

The game’s philosophy as it relates to complexity is that it’s better to have the information and not need it, than to need the information and not have it. As a result, while the game world is quite detailed, and the system contains a number of options for different styles and types of play, almost all of these factors are purely optional.

Modular game depth

This allows beginning players to strip the system back to the bones in order to create a quick and easy, streamlined gaming experience, or for experienced gamers to take advantage of all the game’s details to create a fully-immersive, nuanced game which allows players to take full advantage of the game’s complexity. It’s even possible to begin the game using only the basic settings, while gradually adding elements as players become more comfortable with them. It’s your game, so you should feel free to pick and choose which elements suit you and your players.

Ludonarrative Harmony

Ludonarrative Harmony is a fancy word for a pretty basic concept. If you’re playing a game which also tells a story, the two should work in harmony, it means that the system work hand in hand with the setting or story of the world. In Xor’Veil you play the investigator, which means you investigate things. In some stories their maybe more action and adventure but, your still an investigator.

This means the game will help you play an investigator, it won’t force you to be a murderious hobo because there are only rules for killing things and buying things. It has rules for social conflict, for fight scenes, and for investigations. It is what is says on the tin, Fantasy Neo Noir Roleplaying.