Fiasco vs Hunter: The Reckoning
Compare Fiasco and Hunter: The Reckoning side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Fiasco | Hunter: The Reckoning | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | GM-Less, One-Shot Friendly, Rules-Light, Narrative, Collaborative, Drama, Fiction-First, Low-Prep | Investigation, Mystery, Character-Driven, Gritty, Deadly, Atmospheric, Social Combat, Strong GM Support, Lore-Heavy, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | No GM. Setup uses cards (or dice in Classic edition) to establish relationships, needs, locations, and objects between characters. Scenes alternate between Establish and Resolve: other players either frame the scene or choose its outcome. The Tilt at the midpoint introduces chaos. The Aftermath tallies white and black dice to determine each character's fate. | Roll a pool of d10s, usually an Attribute plus a Skill. Each 6 or higher is a success. Meeting the Storyteller's Difficulty wins. Each pair of 10s counts as four successes. On tests within their creed's Field, Hunters may choose to add Desperation Dice equal to the cell's shared Desperation rating. A 1 on any Desperation Die turns a win into a choice: keep it and raise the cell's Danger, or fail and enter Despair. A failed test with a Desperation 1 always causes Despair. |
| Dice | d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very High | Medium |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Proprietary | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Bully Pulpit Games | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2020 | 2022 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Spanish | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish |
| Best For | One-shots where players collaboratively build and then dismantle a story of desperate people with big ambitions: inspired by Coen Brothers films and crime-gone-wrong cinema. | Groups who want investigation-heavy modern horror in which a cell of ordinary people researches, plans, and confronts a monster at real personal risk. |
| Highlights | Zero prep, no GM required, playsets define different settings and genres for each session, Diana Jones Award winner, plays in 2–3 hours | Desperation rises after the cell's setbacks, so mounting trouble adds both dice and risk to later Field tests. Overreach lets a player keep a win by raising the cell's Danger, which escalates the quarry's response against the whole cell. Monsters have weaknesses Hunters can discover, so research pays off as concrete advantages in the final confrontation. |
| Considerations | Heavily dependent on player chemistry and group dynamic, Tilt can derail carefully established narrative threads, new players often struggle with self-directed scene framing, outcome quality varies significantly between groups | Desperation Dice apply only to tests within a Hunter's creed Field, so a character's signature boost sits idle outside that specialty. The book recommends ending most conflicts after about three turns, which leaves little room for extended tactical combat. The content warning covers themes such as sexual violence and torture, so groups should calibrate boundaries before play. |