Horse Majeure vs Night's Black Agents
Compare Horse Majeure and Night's Black Agents side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Horse Majeure | Night's Black Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | Comedy, Beginner-Friendly, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Fast Sessions, Collaborative, Fast-Paced, Low-Prep | Investigation, Espionage, Character-Driven, Gritty |
| Core Mechanic | Two players form one horse: Player 1 (front) and Player 2 (back). Each player rolls one d6 simultaneously. The dice must be within one value of each other to succeed. Matching dice is a perfect result. Increasing differences produce mixed success, failure, or critical failure. A 5-off result is a catastrophic failure that rips the costume in half. A Horse Tolerance Meter tracks how suspicious NPCs are: reaching level 5 loses the game. A bonus racing mode uses the same dice mechanic on a track board for up to 4 teams. | GUMSHOE engine. Investigative abilities auto-succeed: if you have the skill and there's a clue, you find it. General abilities (combat, athletics) roll 1d6 + spent points vs. difficulty 4. Point pools refresh between sessions, creating resource-management tension. Four play modes (Burn, Dust, Mirror, Stakes) tune mechanics to your preferred espionage tone. |
| Dice | d6 | d6 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Medium | High |
| License | Standard commercial | GUMSHOE SRD (CC BY 3.0 / OGL) |
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Tom Lavery | Pelgrane Press |
| Year | 2025 | 2012 |
| Best For | Groups looking for a quick, absurd party game where two players physically coordinate as the front and back halves of a horse costume, hunting for an apple in places horses should not be. | Groups who want spy-thriller action fused with supernatural horror: burned agents unraveling a vampire conspiracy through investigation, chases, and tradecraft. |
| Highlights | Unique two-player-per-character mechanic forces coordination between the front and back of a horse costume. Horse Tolerance Meter creates escalating tension as NPCs grow suspicious. Includes three detailed color-coded maps with story hooks: a hospital, a space station, and a haunted house. Includes a separate racing board game mode for even player counts. Print-and-play zine format with standee cutouts included. | Investigation never stalls: clues flow automatically, Conspyramid campaign structure is a well-designed GM tool, four tonal modes let you dial in the spy genre you want, highly modular vampire creation system, works stripped of vampires for pure espionage |
| Considerations | Single-page ruleset with no character advancement, inventory, or campaign structure. Requires exactly even player counts plus a GM. One expansion zine (Stable Conditions) adds items and a bingo board. Humor depends heavily on the group's willingness to commit to the premise. | NPC combat math can feel unbalanced against PCs, multiple point pools to track can bottleneck play, narrow genre focus limits reuse, requires significant GM prep for conspiracy networks |