Horse Majeure vs R'lyehwatch
Compare Horse Majeure and R'lyehwatch side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Horse Majeure | R'lyehwatch | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Comedy, Beginner-Friendly, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Short Sessions, Collaborative, Fast-Paced, Low-Prep | Rules-Light, Comedy, One-Shot Friendly, Short Sessions, Player-Only Rolls, Weird |
| 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. | Players roll a pool of 1–3 d6s against a target difficulty (4 for easy, 5 for average, 6 for hard). Every challenge starts with 1 die: add a second if the challenge matches the character's stat (Agile, Brawny, or Crafty), and a third if their role applies (The Veteran, Rookie, Medic, Gizmo, Detective, or Weirdo). Success means at least one die meets or beats the difficulty. Players spend luck tokens to invoke a perk and lower the difficulty by 1, and recover luck by letting their quirk cause a problem (raising the difficulty by 1). Grit tokens absorb failure consequences; a character who runs out of grit is removed from the scene. The referee never rolls dice during a challenge: they choose the stat and difficulty, then narrate the outcome. Extended challenges (chases, fights, infiltration) deplete a shared pool of effort tokens, one per success. |
| Dice | d6 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very Low |
| Availability | Paid | Paid |
| Runnability | Book tools not listed | 3 of 5 book tools |
| License | Standard commercial | Proprietary; third-party license and SRD permit derivative works |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | Tom Lavery | Hedgemaze Press / Third Chair Games |
| Year | 2025 | 2023 |
| Languages | English | English |
| 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 a quick, comedic cosmic-horror RPG that pairs Baywatch-style melodrama with the Cthulhu Mythos. Tuned for pickup play and 2-4 hour sessions, with three tonal modes (Casual, Standard, Horror) that retune lethality without changing the core rules. |
| 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. | Three difficulty targets and a 1–3 d6 dice pool make up the entire resolution system. Three tonal modes (Casual, Standard, Horror) adjust grit recovery rate, retuning the same rules from sitcom-style play to deadly survival horror without changing any mechanics. All heroes share a universal Slow Motion quirk: narrating a slow-motion moment recovers a luck token but raises the current challenge's difficulty. Adventure generator combines random Objective, Location, and Complication tables for pickup scenarios; also includes an Elder Gods & Cults table, a Monster Maker, and a mapped Sunset Hills setting. |
| 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. | Mechanically minimal: no advancement track beyond optional luck and grit cap increases, no gear lists, no tactical combat structure. Pacing assumes 2–4 hour sessions rather than multi-arc campaigns. Setting is anchored to Sunset Hills, California; running the game elsewhere requires reskinning the included cult, NPC, and location tables. Three difficulty values and a maximum 3-die pool give coarse resolution: granular skill differentiation is not the design. |