Gone to Hell

What You'll Need

• 2–4 people, yourself included
• Copies of all the playsheets
• A pile of tokens – beads, coins, poker chips, or (ideally) little plastic skulls
• No dice

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Setup

Usually you'd start with character creation, and Gone to Hell is no exception. Things are going to work a little differently from what you might be used to, though, because rather than having one Gamemaster and multiple players, Gone to Hell has one player and multiple GMs! Here's how it works:

1. Go around the table and have each player pick an Opposing Force playsheet. This is the facet of the apocalypse you'll be responsible for in play. There's no separate GM role, so every player has to choose one! If there are more players than Opposing Force playsheets, or if some of the available playsheets don't seem appropriate for the game you have in mind, see the Optional Rules section for some ways around that.
2. Underline your choices in the choose one or more lines on your Opposing Force playsheet. If none of the options on a given line appeal to you, you can write your own at the end of the line and underline it instead.
3. You'll see a fill-in-the-blanks section called Your Hunger, Your Instruments, Your Laws, or Your Damage, depending on your playsheet. Fill in just the first line; the others will be filled in during play whenever inspiraton strikes
4. Optionally, cross off and re-write one (and only one) of your Opposing Force's Agendas to better suit your personal vision for them. This can change how your Opposing Force plays pretty significantly, so it's okay if you leave the Agendas as-is the first time you play.
5. Give your Opposing Force a suitably sinister title.
6. Write your name on the playsheet so you don't forget whose is whose, and pass it around the table so everybody can see your choices.
7. Once everybody's Opposing Force playsheet is filled out, spend a few minutes brainstorming what sort of world the apocalypse is taking place in and how the various Opposing Forces fit together. Don't pin anything down too firmly, though – everything could change once you start playing!
8. Make any final adjustments to your Opposing Force playsheet that came out of the brainstorming phase.
9. Bring out the Slayer playsheets and decide as a group what sort of Slayer would work best for your game. Each one lends itself to a different sort of story – the Slayer playsheets section will outline how.
10. Collaboratively work through the choose one or more lines on the Slayer playsheet in the same way as above. You can either collectively brainstorm a choice for each line, or go around the table and have each player choose one at a time.
11. Answer as many questions as you wish from the Your Legend section of the Slayer playsheet. Again, you can collectively brainstorm each answer, or take turns. Any questions you don't answer now can be filled in during play.
12. As with Opposing Forces, you have the option to cross off and re-write one Agenda; decide as a group.
13. Give your Slayer a name and an appropriately terrifying epithet. (The Slayer is always an appropriate epithet, if an unimaginative one!)
14. Decide on the order in which players will take turns being the Slayer; this is called the scene order. It can be any order you want, but I recommend starting with whoever owns the most metal albums.
15. Whoever's first in the scene order, pick up the Slayer playsheet, and set your Opposing Force playsheet aside for the moment.
16. Also pick up one token from the pile and put it in front of the Slayer player.
17. Start the first scene!

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How to Play

Gone to Hell plays out as a structured conversation. There are no dice, nor any other randomisers. If you're holding the Slayer playsheet, you're the Slayer. Your Opposing Force fades into the background for the duration; they're still a factor in the story, but they're not currently driving the plot. (No playing two roles at once!) Conversely, if you're not holding the Slayer playsheet, you and the other Opposing Forces (if any) act as co-GMs to challenge and react to the Slayer.

Play is divided into scenes, which work a little like this:

1. At the start of each scene, the Opposing Forces collaborate to describe the unreasonable situation the Slayer finds before them. They need not drop the Slayer directly into a fight, but should include some real, present danger.
2. The Slayer will investigate, ask questions about what they see, and talk to any non-Slayer characters who might be present (if they're the talkative sort), and the Opposing Forces players will answer. After a minute or two of this, the Slayer should take an action (see below); if not, refer to your Opposing Force playsheets to find out how to handle the Slayer stalling for time!
3. The Slayer takes an action according to the rules on the Slayer playsheet.
4. One or more Opposing Forces respond by taking reactions according to the rules on the Opposing Force playsheets.
5. Play returns to freeform question-and-answer mode until the next time the Slayer takes an action (or gets caught stalling for time).
6. After several action-reaction cycles, the Slayer will trigger the end of the scene – your Opposing Force playsheet will explain how. One of the Opposing Forces will step forward and wrap up the scene in the appropriate fashion.
7. Pass the Slayer playsheet to the next player in the scene order. They are now the Slayer, and the former Slayer picks up their Opposing Force playsheet. Also move any unspent tokens in front of the new Slayer, and add one more from the pile.
8. Start the next scene!
9. Repeat steps 1–8 until each player has been the Slayer at least once. After this, you can collaboratively narrate a cliffhanger or epilogue to end the session whenever it feels like you've reached a good stopping point.

You've no doubt noticed that the Opposing Forces are largely reactive. After each scene begins, everything is driven by Slayer actions; the Opposing Forces can't inititate unless the Slayer is stalling, and even then, they're limited in what they can do. This is very much intentional: though the Opposing Forces act as co-GMs, the Slayer drives the plot. Don't worry – you'll get your turn as the Slayer soon enough!

All of the above notwithstanding, you may always ask questions or offer suggestions to help another player out when they're stuck. This does not count as your action or reaction, and overrides every other rule. If you're wondering how to square this with the stalling for time rule, it's simple: if it's the Slayer who's spinning their wheels, hit 'em where it hurts. If it's the Slayer's player who's floundering, throw them a lifeline!

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Random Advice

The previous sections cover how to play the game. This one includes some pointers, observations, and miscellaneous advice on how to get the most out of those rules. (This material will receive a more formal organisation and probably its own chapter when the game exits playtest status – I just wanted to get it written down for now!)

For Everybody

• Since Gone to Hell doesn't depend on pre-written scenarios, pre-game discussion is super important for getting everybody on the same page. There's a reason the setup instructions are longer than the actual rules of play!
• Always build on what the other players are doing rather than blocking or reversing. If somebody's taking the game in a direction that totally torpedoes your vision, call a sidebar and talk it out; trying to use the rules to yank the plot back on your favoured track will just piss people off.
• Remember that every action and reaction has a narrative context. If the rules say you can do something, you still have to figure out how that makes sense story-wise. From the Slayer's perspective, that could mean using one or more Routine Actions to set up a Heavy Action's knockdown. For the Opposing Forces, that means using your Routine Reactions to establish what's at stake before bringing down the hammer. Failure to do so may invoke…
• … the Bullshit Rule. Any player, Slayer and Opposing Force alike, has the right to call bullshit if somebody just contradicted a previously established fact, introduced an obvious plot hole, or failed to adequately justify an action or reaction in the narrative. This isn't something you use tactically; usually it only takes a small adjustment to bring things back in line, and if you call bullshit, you should be prepared to offer constructive suggestions!
• Take notes. Which role you're playing is going to be ping-ponging all over the place, and it's easy to lose track of important stuff.
• Given much of the source material's preoccuption with sex and violence, it's easy for Gone to Hell to go places people aren't comfortable with. There are many tool you can use to tackle this issue. I don't advocate any one in particular, because I don't know your group, and the wrong approach for the wrong group can hurt more than it helps, but as a starting point you can fire up your favourite search engine and look up The X Card and Lines and Veils.

For Opposing Forces

• The scene-opening description is the only time you get to introduce a major threat or obstacle without waiting for the Slayer to drop a Light Action for you to react to. Exploit it shamelessly.
• Switch between in-character and out-of-character voice as needed, and take advantage of environmental descriptions to express your reactions without dialogue. Very few reactions require any particular mouthpiece character to be present – even your leading questions can be asked OOC, if need be. If nothing else works, don't be afraid to resort to a mysterious voice over an intercom. It's a popular trope in Gone to Hell's source material for a reason!
• Use index cards to represent any named non-Slayer characters you introduce. Ask for permission before permanently killing off somebody else's named character – it's just good form.
• If two Opposing Forces come into conflict during a scene, always focus on how the fallout of their scuffle affects the Slayer. Don't let it turn into a cutscene where the Slayer is stuck watching!
• This one isn't advice so much as pointing out a slightly subtle interaction, but: since the scene-ending triggers are tied to specific reaction types, you can decline a trigger simply by not taking the relevant reaction. You shouldn't do so often, since it messes with the token economy, and you definitely shouldn't do it to deprive the Slayer of a victory they're clearly gunning for, but you're not required to cut short a scene that's still got legs just because a trigger came up.
• Unless you're the only Opposing Force in play, don't feel obligated to react to every single thing the Slayer does. It's 100% okay to sit a reaction phase out if you've got nothing to add. Just don't make a regular habit of it!
• Don't forget: what goes around comes around. In Gone to Hell, that's completely literal, since whatever you put on the Slayer as an Opposing Force is something you're going to have to deal with yourself when it's your turn to be the Slayer. Be the evil you want to see in the world.

For the Slayer

• Remember that you're in the driver's seat. Gone to Hell changes it up compared to many other tabletop RPGs by making the player role the proactive one: once the scene is set, the Slayer does stuff, and the Opposing Forces react.
• Whether you're going to have a boss fight is totally up to you – the Slayer always has the option of spending a token to wipe away any threat. The general flow of a boss fight is to get your ass kicked for a while by taking a couple of Light Actions in a row, then rally with a Heavy Action to finish the fight. Note that this means boss fights will often result in a net gain of tokens; this is intended!
• For a multi-stage boss fight, use the leading question that appears as the final Light Action on every Slayer playsheet to prompt for the next phase.
• Speaking of the Slayer's leading questions, you can and should throw in a bit of narration establishing how you're seeking the information you've requested. This won't affect whether you get it (Slayer actions always succeed!), but it will inform how the Opposing Forces describe it. For example, the questions on THE HUNTER's playsheet could be framed as the output of a high-tech scan visor just as easily as the result of deductive reasoning.
• Note that owing to the way the game's token economy works, losing is always a choice. You can theoretically break even on every scene in which the Slayer emerges victorious: gain one token when the scene starts, plus two more for Light Actions, and spend all three on Heavy Actions for the win. If you'd prefer a grittier game, see the optional rules for alternative scene pacing for some suggestions on how to adjust this.
• There's no rule against powering up or asking a question as your third Heavy Action in a scene, and triggering the end of the scene that way. Understand, however, that you're putting the Opposing Forces on the spot by doing so – now they've got to figure out how what you just did could plausibly result in the Slayer's immediate victory! It's good form to have a suggestion in mind, just in case you stump them.

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For Routine Actions

Whenever you run into something that lines up with the Slayer's idiom, you can add a new Routine Action to the Slayer playsheet. The next chapter discusses the anatomy of Routine Actions in much greater detail; as a brief introduction, the standard Routine Actions on every Slayer playsheet break down like so:

• How the Slayer deals with lesser threats
• How the Slayer engages with their environment in general
• How the Slayer finds a new angle on a problem
• How the Slayer recovers and obtains minor powerups
• How the Slayer asks for a hint

New Routine Actions give the Slayer additional ways of handling one or more of the above. They don't have to line up one-to-one with existing actions, but thinking of them that way can make it easier to come up with new ones on the fly.

Dealing With Lesser Threats

Every Slayer has the option to destroy any lesser threats within reach as a Routine Action, though some playsheets provide other options – for example, THE HUNTER can also evade. New actions of this type either create additional options, or modify the conditions under which those options can be used. Some examples might include:

• Destroy a lesser threat within line of sight using my sniper rifle
• Send lesser threats within reach into panicked flight with my battle cry
• Distract any lesser threats that can see me using my holographic decoy
• Take out a lesser threat without giving away my position by turning invisible
• Purify any lesser threats within reach without harming their human hosts using my exorcism technique

Dealing with lesser threats can also cross the line into environmental manipulation or finding a new angle by doing something useful with a threat rather than evading or destroying it. This could look like any of the following:

• Turn lesser threats within reach into ice statues using my freeze ray
• Convert a lesser threat into a loyal minion using my magic brand
• Use a lesser threat as a hypersonic projectile with my magnetic accelerator
• Trade places with a lesser threat using my teleportaton rune
• Have my robot buddy take out lesser threats within its reach

These actions take the form [do something to] lesser threat(s) [under some condition] by/using/with [method].

Engaging With the Environment

The most straightforward way of giving the Slayer new ways to engage with the environment is to grant a new mode of movement. Examples include:

• Perform death-defying aerial stunts with my jetpack
• Pass through walls and other thin barriers with my phase desynchroniser
• Reach distant vantage points and pull unsecured objects or creatures toward me with my grapple beam
• Run on water and leap impossible distances with my lightfoot technique
• Travel hidden paths by shifting into the Shadow Realm

Another, slightly less obvious option is to change how the Slayer engages with the environment by not engaging with certain features of it. In their most basic form, these actions let the Slayer claim immunity to a specific danger or environmental condition, like:

• fire
• extreme cold
• deadly poison
• underwater
• something scenario specific; e.g., life-draining shadow energy

These actions will usually represent a protective suit, chemical treatment, fortifying magical glyph, body-hardening meditative practice, or something to that effect. Technically the Slayer needs to burn a Routine Action to activate this protection when it’s needed, though in practice the Opposing Forces may give them a free pass and assume it’s always active. Conversely, the Opposing Forces may decide as part of a Heavy Reaction that it’s temporarily worn off or been overloaded!

These actions take the form [do something unusual] by/using/with [method].

Finding a New Angle

There are a couple of ways to approach finding a new angle. The first and most basic gives the Slayer a new toy to play with that grants a specific set of problem-solving tools – e.g., a gun, gadget, gauntlet, or martial arts technique that works by:

• telekinetically manipulating unsecured objects
• remotely controlling non-hostile technology
• transforming your limbs into a variety of industrial tools
• projecting a pair of linked portals onto any two surfaces
• sculpting the nearby terrain

Some of these options may cross the line into engaging with the environment as well as finding a new angle, depending on how you approach them. That's okay – like I said earlier, thinking of each new action as a 1:1 counterpart with a standard action on the Slayer playsheet is just a convenient shorthand. A given action doesn't have to be restricted that way if it doesn't make sense for it to be.

The second and more comprehensive option is what you might call an alt mode: the Slayer transforms into or assumes the role of something that gives them a new set of capabilities to play with. Variations on this theme include:

• transforming into a bird, wolf, or other animal
• deploying a remote-controlled drone
• possessing or mind-controlling a lesser threat or non-Slayer character
• shrinking to one-tenth your usual size
• curling up into a ball and rolling away

These effects are mostly narrative, but the Opposing Forces might determine that certain other actions work differently until the Slayer changes back. If the Slayer spends enough time fooling around in an alt mode to invoke the stalling for time rule, the Opposing Forces can knock them out of it as a Routine Reaction.

These actions take the form Find a new angle on a problem by/using [method].

Powering Up

The standard Routine Action for powering up already reflects the Slayer's idiom(s), so adding a second one will be unusual. Normally it will only make sense to do so if the Slayer suddenly acquires a new way to power up mid session. (Maybe they get turned into a vampire?) The option does exist if such a scenario ever comes up, though!

These actions take the form Catch a reprieve by/using [method].

Asking For a Hint

New actions of this type supplement the final Routine Action on the Slayer playsheet by granting an additional question you can ask the Opposing Forces and be guaranteed to get a straight answer. This might represent:

• a technological scanner
• a trick of extrasensory perception
• a radio link to a helpful advisor
• a magic divining crystal
• a noisy fairy companion

Taking this option multiple times will usually expand the capabilities of the existing information-gathering method rather than adding new methods. Most extra questions will be something along the following lines:

• what am I missing here?
• what's about to happen here?
• what here is the biggest threat to me?
• what's interesting about [the thing that I’m looking at]?
• where should I go next?

These actions take the form Use [method] to ask the Opposing Forces [question].

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For Heavy Actions

Heavy Actions follow a similar pattern to Routine Actions, so all of the previous discussion applies here too. Your new Heavy Action would just have bigger effects: removing greater threats rather than lesser ones, wiping away problems rather than finding new angles, and so forth.

However, the standard Heavy Actions on most Slayer playsheets are already very flexible, so that approach will often feel unsatisfying. Another approach is to create new Heavy Actions that break the rules in some way, letting the Slayer do things that don't obviously fall within the scope of any existing Heavy Action. You can think of these as Gone to Hell's equivalent of those rule-breaking special moves in a video game that require you to charge up a meter or expend some limited resource.

A few examples:

Environmental Control

Spend a token to create a particular environmental condition spanning the entire scene. This action lets the Slayer exercise a moment of Opposing Force-like control over the staging of the scene. Possible effects include:

• calling for sustained aerial bombardment from off-screen allies
• revealing that you've rigged the whole area with deadly traps
• teleporting both yourself and your enemies to an arena of your choosing
• conjuring a violent thunderstorm with the force of your wrath
• setting everything everywhere on fire

Actions of this type just state the thing the Slayer does – there's no special phrasing.

Mass Destruction

Spend a token to take out all the lesser threats in the scene, regardless of whether they’re within reach, as well as inflict variable amounts of collateral damage depending on how the action is described. This could represent:

• a smart weapon
• a swarm of hunter-killer drones
• a superspeed or time-stop technique
• a purification or exorcism ritual
• a really big bomb

Actions of this type take the form Destroy/banish/etc. all lesser threats in the scene by/using/with [method].

Perfect Defence

Spend a token to completely no-sell, well, just about anything. This one requires a fair bit of collaboration with the Opposing Forces in order to set up a sufficiently ridiculous attack or peril that simply surviving it is dramatic enough to be worth the token. If you absolutely need the Slayer to be able to shrug off a nuclear bomb to the face, though, this is the action for you. Possible justifications include:

• a limited-use force field
• an impossible parry
• a time-manipulation technique
• the ultimate body-reinforcing martial art
• getting blown to pieces, then rapidly regenerating/reassembling yourself

Actions of this type take the form ignore any single attack by/using/with [method].

Scale Up

Spend a token to change the scale of the conflict for the rest of the scene. The effects of this action are mainly descriptive, changing what counts as an obstacle or a threat from the Slayer’s perspective: things that formerly constituted greater threats might be treated as lesser threats, and things that were simply out of the Slayer's league may now be approachable as greater threats. It may also modify how other actions work, at the Opposing Forces’ discretion. This might involve:

• bodily transforming (e.g., into a dragon, a demon, some sort of werewolf)
• boarding a vehicle (e.g., a tank, a giant robot, a particularly scary horse)
• gaining a small army (e.g, summoning duplicates, deploying drones, hacking or mind-controlling numerous lesser threats)
• entering an altered state where only certain entities are capable of threatening you (magical girl transformation sequence optional)
• growing very large (self-explanatory)

If the Slayer uses this effect as a scene-ending Heavy Action, they receive the benefits of increased scale for the next scene instead. Actions of this type take the form change the scale of the conflict by/using/with [method].

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For Everybody

Every playsheet starts with a high-level concept. I start by coming up with at least three different examples of that concept from popular media and finding the common thread; ideally, these examples should be from first-person shooters, spectacle fighters, or – to a somewhat lesser extent – survival-horror games and Metroidvanias, since that's what will mesh best with the game's existing material, but your source material could be just about anything.

You'll want your go-to examples to be as different as possible from one another while still sticking to your central theme, or else you're going to have a hard time filling out some of the following sections, particularly the choose one or more bits. Once you've got them firmly in your mind, the next steps depend on what kind of playsheet you're creating – an Opposing Force, or a Slayer.

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For Opposing Forces

Every Opposing Force playsheet begins with a trio of pick-lists: Your Nature, Your Aesthetic, and Your Mood. Aim for around five entries on each list.

Your Nature is the most straightforward of the three: a basic statement of what the Opposing Force's deal is. This is the one where players are least likely to exercise the or more clause, so it's okay if they're mostly mutually exclusive, but be on the lookout for interesting pairings. Each entry should be around 3–4 words long; occasional outliers are okay, but if they're consistently longer, you're probably overspecifying.

Unless the Opposing Force is a singular being like THE RIVAL, Your Aesthetic isn't just a fashion statement: it also establishes what sorts of descriptive cues you can use to signify that a given place or situation is under that Opposing Force's influence. Mutually exclusive options are less okay here – try to make sure that every possible pairing is a distinctly interesting option in its own right.

Finally, Your Mood sets the tone when this Opposing Force's player is in the narrative driver's seat. It doesn't necessarily reflect the attitude of any particular agent of the Opposing Force, though it totally can if it's the sort of Opposing Force the Slayer can talk to. The fatal temptation here is to break out a thesaurus and just find five different ways of saying the same thing, so mix it up!

Your Thing

Every Opposing Force has its own unique gimmick, from THE HORDE's hungers, to THE SYSTEM's mechanisms of control, to THE RIVAL's bewildering array of psychological hangups. These are filled in during play, so you don't need to come up with anything right now, but you should put some thought into exactly how what's being asked for reflects the Opposing Force's core theme.

The secret trick is that each Opposing Force's Thing is the expression of its fifth Agenda: THE CIPHER has laws by which it may judge, THE SYSTEM has instruments through which to exert its control, and so forth. You may find it works better for you to skip ahead and figure out the Opposing Force's Agendas now, then come back and figure out its Thing afterward.

Your Agendas

An Opposing Force's Agendas are a set of basic storytelling prompts to help its player figure out how it should react to the curveballs the Slayer throws at it. They break down like so:

• The first two Agendas are the Opposing Force's hammer and nail: what broad goal does it chase after in the absence of any more specific objective, and how does it instinctively go about doing that? THE HORDE inflicts pain to enforce hierarchy. THE SYSTEM wields influence to serve it masters' interests. THE WORLD imposes its demands to make that which is not itself into itself. This document isn't terribly consistent about which one comes first and which one comes second – it depends on which order flows better!
• The third Agenda is always the Opposing Force's fatal flaw. How does it constantly screw itself over? Above anything else, this is the weakness that lets the Slayer win. Write down the phrase self-sabotage through, followed by a simple attitude or behavioural tendency.
• The fourth Agenda is the most purely player-facing of the lot. The others tell you what the Opposing Force does, but this one tells you how to present those actions to your audience. THE CIPHER knows more than you. THE RIVAL is the Slayer's twisted mirror. THE SYSTEM desperately wants to be right.
• The fifth and final Agenda is usually the hardest to come up with: a one-word statement (always a verb) of the Opposing Force's most fundamental act. If you're playing this Opposing Force and you have one second to decide what to do, it's this. As noted previously, this Agenda is key that unlocks the Opposing Force's Thing, so you can tackle the two in whatever order works best for you.

Heavy Reactions

Heavy Reactions are how the Opposing Force brings the pain. There are exactly five, as follows:

• The first Heavy Reaction is always introducing a new greater threat – that is, the sort of thing the Slayer needs to pay a token to get rid of. What exactly constitutes a greater threat can vary a lot, but it should be something that can plausibly be fought and killed, or at least neutralised; provide at least three brief examples. It's the direct counterpart to the Slayer's first Heavy Action option, though the third will sometimes be applicable as well.
• The second Heavy Reaction is the Opposing Force's default way of introducing a big hairy problem or obstacle that needs to be dealt with right now. Like the previous reaction, the Slayer will often need to spend a token to deal with it. The Slayer's second and third Heavy Actions deal with this sort of thing.
• The third Heavy Reaction reveals far-reaching badness in keeping with the Opposing Force's nature. Unlike the previous two reactions, there isn't necessarily any immediate threat to the Slayer, but the information that's revealed may totally recontextualise their goals. This one always starts with the word reveal.
• The fourth Heavy Reaction is the one where the Slayer has to listen to you monologue. Everybody loves a good villain monologue – what would this Opposing Force rant about?
• The final Heavy Reaction is a boilerplate scene-ending trigger; just copy and paste it from one of the existing Opposing Force playsheets.

Routine Reactions

Routine Reactions are the workhorses of the playsheet. They're troublesome, but not terribly harsh; in response to any Slayer action includes Heavy Actions, and you don't want a Routine Reaction on your Opposing Force playsheet that can completely reverse a Heavy Action's victory!

• The first Routine Reaction introduces new lesser threats – the sort of thing that the Slayer is going to have to burn an action to deal with, but not necessarily a token as well. Like greater threats, these should be something the Slayer can plausibly neutralise or kill; provide three examples.
• The second Routine Reaction is how the Opposing Force generically makes the Slayer's life more difficult. This is the passive or reactive counterpart to a threat's active inconvenience. Always begins with the phrase obstruct the Slayer's path with (or occasionally by).
• The third Routine Reaction sets up the basic narrative responsibility of this Opposing Force's player: to describe some specific facet or dimension of the ongoing apocalypse. Always begins with the word describe.
• The fourth and fifth Routine Reactions are the same for every Opposing Force – the only thing that differs is the list of example questions. If you've gotten this far, you probably have a pretty good idea what sorts of questions the Opposing Force would ask. Leading questions don't have to be asked in character, so you should still come up with a list of examples even for Opposing Forces that have no obvious means of questioning the Slayer.

Light Reactions

Light Reactions have the least formal structure, which gives you an opportunity to inject some extra personality. The first four Light Reactions typically consist of some combination of the following options, in no particular order. No Opposing Force playsheet will have all of them, and some may have multiple versions of the same one.

• Acknowledge the Slayer's awesomeness in a backhanded or passive-aggressive way
• Impose a yes, but: the Slayer gets what they want, but this other bad or weird thing happens as well
• Toss in a yes, and: the Slayer gets what they want, plus an extra benefit that's of dubious utility or carries some significant downside
• Foreshadow the long-term consequences of the Slayer's actions
• Provide a narrative prompt for some aspect of the Slayer's personality or history this Opposing Force is interested in exploring
• Let the Slayer choose what sort of badness they'll face next
• Throw a tantrum and sulk

The final Light Reaction is another boilerplate scene-ending trigger – time to copy and paste!

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For Slayers

Like Opposing Forces, every Slayer's playsheet begins with a series of pick-lists: Your Look, Your Attitude, Your Weapons and Your Idiom. Each one should have around five options. That might not seem like a lot, but remember that the group can write their own entries when the playsheet is actually used; your goal isn't to exhaust every possibility, but to provide a solid direction for the group's brainstorming.

Your Look is probably the easiest – just steal bits of costumery from the examples you came up with in the first step. These can be both self-contained looks and individual touches of colour. Try to make sure that at least most of the options are amenable to being paired up, and watch for fun or unexpected combinations.

Your Attitude is the one pick-list where you shouldn't worry about having lots of seemingly incompatible entries. Slayers contain multitudes; picking two wildly incompatible attitudes and figuring out how to reconcile them is part of the fun!

Your Weapons is where the Slayer's basic problem-solving tools are established. You don't need to worry about any give entry providing a complete toolkit, since the group can pick as many as they want when statting out their Slayer, so your priority should be to get a good mix of straightforward options and weird ones.

Finally, Your Idiom describes what the Slayer's powerups and health pickups are going to look like. Try to provide at least a little bit of in-character justification for each entry, but you don't need to be terribly realistic about it – Gone to Hell isn't particularly subtle about the fact that it's a tabletop video game. Most of the entries should be able to justify powering up in some fashion, but it's okay if one or two are pure recovery options.

Your Legend

This section consists of a set of three brief backstory questions. They should be the sorts of questions that can be answered in a single sentence – we're not interested in making any group that uses this playsheet write a book here! The trick is making sure that all of the questions are equally applicable to all, or at least most, of the media examples you have in mind. If you can't come up with any such questions, it's possible your examples aren't as closely related as you thought they were.

Your Agendas

Like Opposing Forces, a Slayer's agendas follow a particular pattern. You can adjust or rearrange if you playsheet concept warrants it, but try to stick mostly to the following set:

• The first Agenda is a thing the Slayer does proactively. It's the primary driver that motivates them to fight against the forces of the apocalypse.
• The second Agenda is a thing the Slayer does reactively. It may complicate or complement the first Agenda, depending on the Slayer, but it's not something they actively pursue – it just seems to keep coming up.
• The third Agenda is how the Slayer fits into their social context and relates to any non-Slayer characters they might encounter.
• The fourth Agenda is the image the Slayer strives to cultivate. This may be different from the image they actually present!
• The final agenda is a pithy overarching mission statement, and also – by convention – a meme reference. The meme reference is optional; the mission statement is not.

Heavy Actions

Heavy Actions are how the Slayer gets shit done. Spending a token is basically an I win button, at least in terms of what's immediately in front of the Slayer, and these actions should reflect that.

• The first Heavy Action removes a greater threat from the equation, where greater threat is defined as a thing the Opposing Forces used a Heavy Reaction to introduce, and describes how the Slayer goes about doing so. Removing a threat often means killing it, but not always; THE HUNTER, for example, also has the option to evade.
• The second Heavy Action lets the Slayer get where they need to be regardless of what's standing in their way. Its limitations are implicit in its methods; for example, THE AVENGER wrests open a path through brute force, which might not always be the brightest idea!
• The third Heavy Action is the Slayer's optimal problem-solving strategy. This is the closest the Slayer's player gets to GM-like authority: when they do this thing and pony up a token, it Just Works.
• The fourth Heavy Action is a boilerplate powerup action; just copy and paste it from one of this document's playsheets.
• The final Heavy Action is a leading question that prompts the Opposing Forces to tell the Slayer how they can win. Note that it's completely possible for this question to be the third Heavy Action that triggers the end of the scene, so the nature of the question should be such that its answer could plausibly lead to immediate victory.

Routine Actions

Routine Actions represnt the Slayer's core competencies – things this particular Slayer can always do and expect to succeed, unless they've recently gotten the stuffing beat out of them. They're still things that cost, in terms of giving the Opposing Forces a chance to react, but they don't draw on limited resources.

• The first Routine Action takes lesser threats off the table – that is, threats the Opposing Forces didn't need a Heavy Reaction to introduce. All of the same considerations that apply to the first Heavy Action apply here, too.
• The second Routine Action describes how the Slayer engages with their environment in more general terms. More than any other action, this is the Slayer's core: THE HUNTER is a master of their trade, THE AVENGER is brutally strong and fast, and THE THRILLSEEKER is just annoyingly hard to kill! What does this Slayer do?
• The third Routine Action is how the Slayer finds a new angle on a problem. This is usually going to be the setup for another action's knockdown, so the specifics will depend on the Slayer's strengths: THE HUNTER changes the problem's context, but THE AVENGER reduces the problem to a nail for their favoured hammer.
• Like its Heavy counterpart, the fourth Routine Action is boilerplate text.
• The final Routine Action is basically a lighter version of the final Heavy Action; rather than asking the Opposing Forces to do the creative heavy lifting, it just asks for a nudge in the right direction. What kind of leading question goes here depends on how to this Slayer goes after their goals: THE AVENGER is all about about the destination, while THE THRILLSEEKER brings the action to them!

Light Actions

Light Actions generate the fuel for Gone to Hell's engine, and they all do it the same way: by looking the Opposing Forces in the eye and saying please hurt me. The Slayer's choice of action determines what form the hurting takes. You don't need to specify any particular consequences here – that's what the Opposing Forces' Heavy Reactions are for.

• The first Light Action is what failing to remove a threat looks like. It's usually going to be some variation of your attack didn't work, suitably flavoured.
• The second Light Action is how the Slayer gets off track. It can be a literal sidetrack, or just the most common way the Slayer gets trapped or bogged down.
• The third Light Action is how the Slayer's own actions most frequently screw them over. Self-sabotage isn't an agenda for Slayers like it is for Opposing Forces, but they always have the option!
• The fourth Light Action is what getting wounded looks like for this Slayer. This doesn't necessarily mean physical injury: the worst thing that can happen to THE HUNTER is to be deprived of their cool toys, and THE THRILLSEEKER's deepest wounds are to their pride.
• The final Light Action hands the Opposing Forces a blank cheque to add new obstacles on top of existing ones. Like the final Heavy Action, this could be the action that ends the scene, so make sure the leading question is something whose answer could be a catastrophe in its own right.

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Alternative Scene Pacing

The pace of Gone to Hell is mostly determined by the the action economy within each scene. The Slayer can take at most five Heavy or Light actions before hitting a scene-ending trigger, and will often reach one before that, which puts a cap on the number of significant events that can occur in each scene. An enthusiastic Slayer can burn through them in a real hurry!

As noted in the Random Advice section, the token economy also determines the Slayer's expected ratio of wins and losses. I'm going to cover some options for adjusting that as well.

For Longer Scenes

If you're interested in longer individual scenes, your first impulse might be to bump up the number of actions of a particular type that are needed to end a scene, to four or even five. That doesn't always work out in practice, though: requring a very large number of the same type of action may strain the Slayer's creative resources.

A better option is to institute a rule that the Slayer can't take two of the same type of action in a row. Here type refers to Heavy, Routine, or Light. There's still nothing to stop the Slayer from taking nothing but Heavy Actions (or, conversely, nothing but Light Actions) whenever the opportunity arises, but they'll have to do other stuff in between, thus preventing scenarios where a scene is over in three cycles flat. This rule can be relaxed during boss fights and high-tension scenes.

For Grittier Games

While fiddling with the scene-ending triggers isn't the best way to adjust the pace of the game, it's a great way to adjust the tone. As discussed earlier, the Slayer can theoretically emerge victorious in every scene if you're careful to always break even with your tokens. For a game where the Slayer is obliged to take some losses, you can use different thresholds for victory and disaster: for example, it might take three Heavy Actions to emerge victorious, but only two Light Actions to end a scene in catastrophe – or four Heavy Actions to win and three Light Actions to lose, for slightly less tension.

This can be extended to even larger imbalances, but even a one-point difference is enough to ensure that the Slayer will lose fairly often. In particular, if the Slayer ends a scene with zero tokens, it becomes impossible to emerge victorious in the following scene. Even with the free token to start the scene, you can't gather enough tokens to win without triggering a loss in the process. A bigger imbalance expands that guaranteed-loss threshold accordingly.

Removing the free token at the start of each scene will have the same effect on the token economy as unbalanced scene-ending triggers, but it feels harsher, so it's best reserved for games on the grimmer end of the scale. If you decide to institute unbalanced scene-ending triggers and remove the free token at the same time… well, it's your funeral!

For Fluffier Games

All of the preceding advice can be applied in reverse to achieve a game where the Slayer literally never loses: either skew the scene-ending triggers in favour of victory (e.g., three Heavy Actions to win, but four Light Actions to lose), or increase the number of free tokens awarded at the start of each scene to two.

Variable Grittiness

If your group is prepared to put in some extra work, you can decide whether to use unbalanced scene-ending triggers on a scene by scene basis. Just bear in mind that if the imbalance you decide on is bigger than the number of tokens the Slayer finished the previous scene with, the next scene becomes unwinnable! This can create an incentive for the Slayer to accept some early losses and hang onto a few extra tokens, just in case.

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Doubling Up on Opposing Forces

If you're playing with a very large group, or if a smaller group has a specific scenario in mind where some of the Opposing Force playsheets don't fit, you can allow multiple players to choose the same Opposing Force. There are two specific changes to the usual setup process that need to happen here:

• Each player handles the choose-or-or-more and fill-in-the-blank sections of their copy of the doubled-up Opposing Force playsheet individually.
• After those sections are finished on both playsheets, the players should confer and decide whether they're playing as different factions of the same Opposing Force, or as two unrelated Opposing Forces that just happen to have similar modi operandi. (They're treated as separate Opposing Forces for rules purposes regardless of what they decide, though!)
• Erasing and re-writing an Agenda becomes non-optional for the doubled-up Opposing Forces, and each player must erase and re-write a different Agenda. The end result should be that the two copies of the Opposing Force playsheet have three Agendas in common and two that differ.

I don't recommend doubling up like this in two-player games, nor that three or more players pick the same Opposing Force. If you've come up with a premise where that would actually be a good idea, I'd love to hear about it!

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Two-Slayer Co-op

Sometimes you might feel like playing with multiple Slayers – you know, get a little of that two-player co-op action going. That's totally doable, but it complicates the process of play a fair bit. Here are the high points:

• During the setup phase, the group can collaboratively create both Slayers, or divide into two roughly equal-size groups to create one Slayer each.
• The two Slayers share a single pool of tokens; if either one takes a Light Action, the token goes into the same pool, and both spend from the same pool to take Heavy Actions.
• Both Slayer can take actions in each action-reaction cycle, but they may only take one Heavy or Light Action between them. The other can take a Routine Action to help, hinder or react to the main action. I recommend using some sort of tangible marker – an action figure works well! – and passing it back and forth after each cycle to keep track of whose turn it is to take a Heavy or Light Action.
• Both Slayers share in the benefits of each Heavy Action and the consequences of each Light Action.
• Rotating the Slayer role becomes a two-step process. First, whoever's been playing a Slayer longest hands their Slayer playsheet to the other Slayer player. Second, the other Slayer player (i.e., the one who's been playing a Slayer for the shorter amount of time) hands their Slayer playsheet to the next Opposing Forces player in the scene order. Thus, each player gets to play as both Slayers, one after the other.
• If one of the Slayers is suborned or turns coat, it's generally best to handle that by removing their playsheet from the game and treating them as an additional major threat option for an appropriate Opposing Force thereafter. If it makes sense story-wise, you can instead take a moment to re-rewrite them as THE RIVAL and swap them for one of the existing Opposng Forces.
• Slayer-on-Slayer PVP is beyond the scope of these rules. If your game goes there, you're on your own!

The game's narrative flow strongly depends on having at least as many Opposing Forces as Slayers, so two-Slayer co-op is recommended for groups with at least four players. (This may require doubling up on Opposing Forces – see above.) If you're thinking about running a six-player group with three Slayers, you're a braver soul than I.

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Branching Paths

An alternative way to handle multiple Slayers in a single game is to take a page from those video games where multiple protagonists are pursuing the same or related goals, but via different routes that only occasionally intersect. In this variant, the role of the Slayer doesn't rotate, but the narrative spotlight does.

• Each player should create their own Slayer, rather than collaborating on a single Slayer for the whole group.
• At the end of each scene, rather than handing off your Slayer playsheet, the camera simply shifts to the next player's Slayer to see what they're up to.
• Unlike the co-op variant, each player maintains their own separate supply of tokens. You can only gain and spend tokens during scenes where the spotlight is on your Slayer.
• If your Slayer happens to show up during a different Slayer's spotlight scene, they're treated as a non-Slayer character. Any Opposing Force (including you) can incorporate them into their reactions just like any other non-Slayer character.
• You retain veto power if an Opposing Force other than you wants something horrible to happen to your Slayer during a scene where they're a non-Slayer character.

Note that your Slayer will never directly face your own Opposing Force, since you can't play both roles at once. Put some thought into why this should be the case story-wise.

I don't recommend this variant for groups larger than three. Partly this is because there are only three Slayer archetypes in the core game, but mostly it's because every additional narrative branch multiplies the amount of information you need to keep track of. It's by no means unmanageable, but if you decide to pull a Game of Thrones at your table, don't say I didn't warn you!

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Downtime Scenes

Gone to Hell's basic format is a headlong rush into endless peril where something is trying to kill you in every scene. If you'd prefer to take a breather now and then, you can institute downtime scenes, which work like this:

• After each player has been the Slayer once, the next scene is a downtime scene. This might represent returning to a safe location after completing an objective, or just finding a temporary refuge in the midst of danger.
• A downtime scene doesn't count as any particular player's turn – it's outside the regular scene rotation. You can continue with whoever was playing the Slayer most recently, or pass the Slayer role from player to player as needed.
• There are no threats or scene-ending triggers in a downtime scene, and the Slayer can't spend or earn tokens. The whole scene is played out in freeform question-and-answer mode, and ends by mutual agreement.
• At the end of the scene, recover any crossed-off actions on the Slayer playsheet, and optionally erase any custom actions that are no longer needed to free up space on the playsheet.
• Reset the Slayer's token pool to one, and start the next scene!

A downtime scene is a great opportunity to take stock of the Slayer's next objective, interact with NPCs without something horrible breathing down your neck, and brainstorm ideas for the following scenes. It's also a good time to decide whether anything that happened during the previous set of scenes warrants answering any unanswered questions from the Your Legend section of the Slayer playsheet, or filling in any remaining blanks on the Opposing Force playsheets.

Finally, if you're using the branching paths variant in your game – and if it makes sense to do so – you can use a downtime scene to have different players' Slayers meet up!

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Diceful Scene Resolution

If your group wants a little more uncertainty in their lives than the basic rules of Gone to Hell provide – or if you just like to roll dice! – you can try the following rules on for size. For this variant, you're going to need three or four dice in each of two colours, where each colour represents a particular type of Slayer action. You can use any colours you want, but I'm going to assume for convenience that blue dice correspond to Heavy Actions, and red dice correspond to Light Actions.

Use the normal scene-ending triggers: the Opposing Forces can end the scene when the Slayer takes a third Heavy Action or a third Light Action. However, before describing the outcome, pick up a number of blue dice equal to the number of Heavy Actions the Slayer took this scene, and a number of red dice equal to the number of Light Actions the Slayer took this scene, and roll them all together.

Don't add any results up: instead, look for the single highest die of each colour. If there's a tie for the highest roll, discard the highest die of each colour until a clear winner emerges, or until one colour runs out of dice. Treat a colour with no remaining dice as having a high roll of zero.

Finally, compare which colour has the most (remaining) dice with which colour is showing the highest roll, like so:

• Mostly blue dice, blue high: The Slayer achieves a straightforward victory. Describe how the opposing forces are forced back or thrown into disarray.
• Mostly red dice, blue high: The Slayer is saved by outside forces. Describe how good fortune or unexpected allies rescue the Slayer from certain doom.
• Mostly red dice, red high: The Slayer suffers a straightforward defeat. Describe how things get catastrophically worse.
• Mostly blue dice, red high: The Slayer suffers a shocking reversal. Describe how the Slayer gets screwed by forces beyond their control.

Depending on the tone your group is aiming for, the reversal outcomes (i.e., mostly red, blue high and mostly blue, red high) can represent simple good or bad luck, but you also have the option of going for a full-on Shocking Twist. Maybe talk that one out first, though!

Breaking Ties

In scenes where the Opposing Forces declined a scene-ending trigger, or if certain other optional rules are in play (see below), it's possible to end up with the same number of dice of each colour. When this happens, treat the colour corresponding to the Slayer's final action for the scene as having the most dice. For example, if there are the same number of blue and red dice and the Slayer's final action was Heavy, read the mostly blue lines on the results table.

There's also a slight possibility of getting a tie for the highest roll, in the specific scenario that you're rolling three dice of each colour and all six dice line up into matching pairs. If this happens, the session ends immediately with a bullshit sequel hook.

With Unbalanced Scene-Ending Triggers

If you're also using the optional rules for unbalanced scene-ending triggers, they'll need some adjusting to play nice with diceful scene resolution. Rather than requiring a different number of actions for each trigger, unbalance the dice by throwing in an extra die corresponding to the direction you want to skew the results: an extra blue for victory, or an extra red for tragedy. Other ways of adjusting the game's tone, like messing with the number of tokens awarded per scene, can be used as-is.

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