Have you already checked out the DeScriptors: Anything Goes PWYW Version? It’s a free way to get started playing the diceless tabletop roleplaying game of clever wordplay…or you can leave a tip when you purchase it! (Thank you!) But then maybe you’re left wondering why you should spend the same amount of cash as your favorite local coffee shop’s vanilla latte to upgrade to DeScriptors: Definitive Edition. Wonder no more! Here are five reasons to make the jump.

#1. Micro-settings for Sci-fi, Supers, or Fantasy

If you like micro settings in the genres of sci-fi, supers, or fantasy. Or all of the above!

DeScriptors: Definitive Edition features a diverse line-up of five pre-built settings in all different genres. Each comes with introductory fiction, core setting details, scenario ideas, and pregenerated characters to get you gaming immediately. Let’s take a look at each one.

Ethanol Pop: Wondrous Days. This steampunk fantasy slice-of-life game is filled with wondrous gizmos, genre-bending mashups, and scenarios that are equally at home in a pastoral fantasy or an airship pirate campaign!

Anything Goes: While You Were Gone. The setting featured in the PWYW “Anything Goes” edition of DeScriptors and inspired by the micro fiction story “While you were gone” reappears here for completeness’ sake! This bizarre setting has been described as “RIFTS as played for laughs”: portals to alternate dimensions have ravaged the world, but you can run funny, scary, or epic scenarios with equal ease.

Hunters Guild of the Ancient Lands. This fantasy campaign setting is perfect for monster hunter scenarios or a “gotta collect ’em all” monster training/fighting scenarios! The players build characters who are members of a guild that strikes out into a truly fantastic, utterly mysterious monster-filled world, hoping to catalogue them, tame them, fight them, or harvest them for trade. The vistas are truly remarkable, and certainly the product of some kind of great magic. What mysteries might be unearthed while searchng for incredible monsters throughout the Ancient Lands?

SUPERMAX! A superhero campaign in a “dystopian utopia” – superpunk, if you will! In this setting, superpowered folks beat back an alien invasion and helped unite the Earth’s government, creating a utopia. Except, if you’re a powered individual, you’re either in prison — SUPERMAX prison, of course! — or you’re one of the prison guards. “Utopia” indeed! Also, as it turns out, there’s a conspiracy involving alien technology recovered from the invasion force…

The Philosopher’s Stone. You are one of the brave few that stands against the madness-inducing interlopers from beyond the realms of reason, hoping to heal the wounds of reality-warping Cthulhu-esque monsters as they ravage the land. This setting works in a fantasy world, in 1920s New England, or in the modern world: the point is that the madness is palpable, and only you can help repair reality.

#2. Do you enjoy flash fiction?

If you enjoy flash fiction micro-settings for inspiration, regardless of what you play.

As mentioned, each setting comes with an opening fiction. More of these sorts of fiction are posted on the DeScriptors Facebook page, so you can get inspired to game in new worlds right away.

And hey, maybe you don’t like the diceless nature of DeScriptors. We won’t fault you. But these settings and their details, scenarios, and pregenerated characters are great fodder for your game system of choice. The use of adjectives to describe these characters and conflicts should make it easy to use them as keywords when dreaming up your own stats in whatever game system you play! (Not for nothing: DeScriptors is incredibly easy to port to games like Fate Core, Fate Accelerated, Dungeon World-based offshoots like Simple World and Universal World, and some OSR systems like Vagabonds of Dyfed!)

#3. A peak behind the curtain

If you want to understand some of the game design goals, concepts, and choices.

One of the coolest chapters in DeScriptors: Definitive Edition is the FAQ. Game creator Matthew Bannock is accompanied by Worldbuilder’s Anvil podcast creator and host Jeffery Ingram in answering eight big questions about the DeScriptors system and narrative, improv-heavy gameplay in general. Their years of experience provide great insight, clever tips, and useful design tips that translate to DeScriptors and many games besides.

That chapter is followed by two other great ones, one of which is an extended Example of Play.  You can follow along as Razmile the Wizard deals with an exasperated messenger, fishes for some rations for the journey ahead, and squares off against a band of roving goblins!

#4. Endlessly expandable ideas

If you want to see how such a simple, adjective-based mechanic can be expanded to suit more options and genre conceits.

We mentioned two cool chapters after the FAQ, and the second one of them is called Options, Variants, and Add-ons. It is filled with additional rules you can add on top of the simple core of DeScriptors. Read about managing meaningful gear, using consumable magic, running multiple characters, hiring on mercenaries, and more. In fact, as new settings and scenarios are created for DeScriptors going forward, we update this chapter periodically with any new mechanics we come up with! Think of it as a living document of options, changes, and icing on the cake!

#5. Support more fiction, characters, and settings!

If you want to support the design team for future endeavors and additional fiction and characters.

You’re supporting the creators behind DeScriptors: Definitive Edition when you purchase the game. Matthew Bannock continues to develop new settings and scenarios for DeScriptors. He’s also constantly building new RPGs (like FARM Champions and Dragon’s Grave), and releasing content for existing systems like the 5th edition of the world’s most popular roleplaying game. Tim Bannock is a best-selling creator and editor on DMsGuild, and works with Matthew to release exciting new adventures and settings for 5th edition and OSR game systems. We in turn support our collaborators: artists, editors, cartographers, and everyone else. We endeavor to pay fair rates and lift up our fellow creators, so supporting us means more work and support for them, too!

Pick up DeScriptors: Definitive Edition in our Shop!

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Happy gaming to ya!