DIE vs Outrunners
Compare DIE and Outrunners side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| DIE | Outrunners | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Horror | Horror, Cyberpunk, Fantasy |
| Tags | Dark Fantasy, Playbook-Driven, Character-Driven, Narrative, Drama, Roleplay-Heavy, Fiction-First, Atmospheric, Worldbuilding, Collaborative | Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Narrative, Fiction-First, Collaborative, Survival, Atmospheric, Character-Driven, Worldbuilding, Strong GM Support |
| Core Mechanic | Build a dice pool of d6s equal to the stat most relevant to the task (0–4), adding dice for advantages and removing dice for disadvantages. Each 4+ is a success; the GM's difficulty subtracts from that total. Each 6+ can also activate a Special ability tied to the roll. Each of the six Paragon classes is identified with a different polyhedral die (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or d20) that can be added to the pool to power that class's signature abilities. | Each character assigns one die from a d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, and d4 set across six stats, then rolls the relevant stat's die against a difficulty number; if half that die's maximum already meets the DC, the action succeeds without a roll. Rolling a die's maximum value without beating the DC triggers a Twist of Fate, exploding up to the next larger die. Fate Points, earned mainly by failing rolls, are spent to reroll, sway outcomes, or invoke the Hands of Fate at a narrative cost. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool + d4–d20 | d4–d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | Low |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | ORC 1.0 (free SRD) |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | Rowan, Rook & Decard | Einsol's Razor |
| Year | 2022 | 2025 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups who want an emotionally heavy, character-focused portal fantasy: real-world friends enter a fantasy world that mirrors their buried issues and must decide whether they can ever agree to go home. | Groups who want a rules-light, emotionally charged one-shot or short campaign about doomed characters racing to outrun a foreseen death, and GMs who want a portable fate-and-survival horror premise they can drop into almost any setting with little prep. |
| Highlights | Six Paragon classes each tied to a specific polyhedral die with its own subsystem: Dictator breaks hearts with words, Fool gains luck from acting carefree, Emotion Knight weaponizes a chosen feeling, Neo powers techno-magic with daily-refreshing Fair Gold, Godbinder bargains with gods for miracles, Master rewrites reality as a rule-bender. Real-world Flashback lets each player recall a memory once per session for advantage on any task. Session-zero procedures build the Personas and the fantasy world around their buried issues. Designed around 2–3 session games with extended campaign rules provided. | Every character begins with a prophesied glimpse of their own death, which seeds concrete clues into the story and ties each session's tension to a deadline the player already knows is coming. Rolling a stat die's maximum without meeting the difficulty explodes it up to the next larger die, turning desperate long shots into escalating last-second reversals rather than flat failures. Fate Points are earned mainly by failing rolls and then spent to reroll, sway outcomes, or invoke the Hands of Fate, so setbacks bankroll later comebacks and every intervention carries a narrative cost. |
| Considerations | Premise requires players willing to roleplay vulnerable real-world versions of themselves before any fantasy play begins. Bleed themes (the fiction leaking into real relationships) push emotional intensity that many groups will need explicit safety buy-in for. Each Paragon has a distinct subsystem the class's player must learn individually. The fantasy world is built collaboratively in session zero around the player Personas rather than drawn from a fixed setting, placing significant improvisational load on the GM. | The default Adamah setting is sketched in only a few pages and the game expects the table to invent most of the world at session zero, so groups wanting a prepared, detailed setting must supply it themselves. Equipment grants only narrative permission rather than mechanical bonuses, so players who enjoy itemization or tactical loadouts will find nothing to optimize. The foreseen-death premise is built to resolve at the Vision's deadline, making the game strongest as a one-shot or short arc and harder to sustain across a long, open-ended campaign. |