Dead Inside

Pyramid Review

Dead Inside: The Roleplaying Game of Loss & Redemption

Published by Atomic Sock Monkey

Written by Chad Underkoffler

Cover by Steve Archer

Illustrated by Chris Cooper & Chad Underkoffler

122-page black & white perfect bound book; $25
or 7.3 meg PDF from RPGnow

Chad Underkoffler is best known in these parts for his Campaign in a Box column series, but he has also contributed to a number of supplements for Unknown Armies, GURPS, and Gamma World, and he also runs his own small press publishing company. Through the amusingly named Atomic Sock Monkey, he labors on a number of "SEKRIT PROJEKTS," of which the first major title to see release is Dead Inside: The Roleplaying Game of Loss & Redemption. "Loss" because our protagonists -- the player characters -- have lost, misplaced, sold, had stolen, or indeed never had a soul; and "Redemption" because this game is all about getting it back. Not through acts of greed, brutality, and lethality, but by being nice, and by confronting personal weaknesses.

Each player character starts in the same situation. One day he wakes up feeling empty and hollow -- quite literally, for that void is where his soul once rested. Just its shards remain to remind him of what they once had. Very quickly someone will be able to tell him what is going on, that they are "Dead Inside," bodies without souls. With their soul gone, their eyes are no longer shielded from the strangeness of the world around them, which will now feel cold and unwelcoming. Further, . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: April 23, 2004

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