Fear of the Unknown vs Public Access
Compare Fear of the Unknown and Public Access side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Fear of the Unknown | Public Access | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Tag-Based, Fiction-First, Collaborative, Investigation, Mystery, Fear & Stress Mechanics, One-Shot Friendly, Rules-Light | Investigation, Mystery, Collaborative, Player-Only Rolls, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Atmospheric, Corruption |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6 and add tags: invoke up to three of your character's tags for +1 each, while the Oracle invokes up to two against you for -1 each. On 10+ you fully succeed, on 7-9 you succeed at a cost, and on 6 or less the Oracle chooses a consequence. The Encounter True Horror move instead adds your accumulated Horror to the roll, where a higher total is worse, so encounters grow more dangerous as dread builds. | When a move is triggered, roll 2d6 plus one of five ability modifiers. A 6 or less is a miss, while many moves split hits into 7–9, 10–11, and 12+ tiers. After a result is narrated, a player can turn a Key to raise it one tier and replace that outcome with a different timeline. |
| Dice | 2d6 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Low | Medium |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 3 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | Sixpence Games | The Gauntlet |
| Year | 2023 | 2023 |
| Languages | English | English, French, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want a rules-light collaborative horror mystery that plays to completion in a single session, especially fans of horror films who want to investigate a mystery and face escalating dread without any GM prep. Works well for convention one-shots and players new to narrative RPGs. | Groups seeking a finite collaborative analog-horror campaign where player-built theories, personal histories, and found-footage prompts shape the truth behind a small-town conspiracy |
| Highlights | Every successful Investigate roll hands the player a clue tied to the question they asked, so the mystery advances from what characters do at the table rather than from clues the Oracle hid in advance. The tags a player invokes on a roll become the fictional elements of the resulting scene, so each character's specific traits, not just the dice result, shape what happens in play. Each supernatural encounter permanently raises a character's Horror, which is added to future horror rolls, building escalating dread without a separate countdown. | Clues have no fixed locations or canonical answers, so players assemble them into a theory and roll to establish whether it is true. Turning a Key raises a resolved roll by one tier and replaces the narrated failure with an alternate timeline. Odyssey tape prompts let players author uncanny broadcasts that become a campaign timer and feed connections back into Deep Lake. |
| Considerations | A single Face Peril roll resolves every dangerous situation, from a fistfight to a fall, with no initiative or enemy stats, so groups wanting tactical combat must build it themselves. The Oracle prepares no clues and improvises every answer to investigation questions live, which demands real on-the-spot creativity rather than prepared structure. The three-act structure and epilogue are built for self-contained one-shots, with no advancement loop for ongoing characters beyond gaining and losing tags. | Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night must occur in order, which constrains free-form scene pacing. The Keeper must synthesize campaign discoveries into a custom final TV Odyssey mystery. The intended campaign engages childhood trauma, body horror, ritual sacrifice, and other dark material. |