tldr; Great unhinged fun with the right group, but I can’t say how it would work long-term.
I’ve played several sessions of Mörk Borg, each around 3 hours in length, at the time of this writing. The first two sessions were with a group of strangers online. The rest were with my regular gaming group, in person. I was a player, not GM, in all sessions so far.
The circumstances for the first group were un-ideal. I can’t remember how many people played, but I remember thinking that it seemed like a few too many for online play. This is a matter of preference I think. A bigger issue perhaps is that, being strangers, I think we were all a little cautious about leaning all the way into the weird grossness of the game and setting. I think this was exacerbated by the GM’s decision to use content written for other systems (specifically Dungeon Crawl Classics and Old School Essentials) that almost but didn’t quite capture the feel of Mörk Borg, in my humble opinion.
The second group didn’t face these issues. We’ve known each other for years and were ready to get down in the muck of the setting and fully embody our gross, pitiful characters. I think the GM for the home game also bought into the whole concept of Mörk Borg more than the GM for the online game. He created an original adventure and dungeon that were well matched for the setting.
Personally, I think this is a tough game to play with strangers. You could say “If you are agreeing to play Mörk Borg, you’re consenting to a certain amount of violence and grossness.” That might be so, but the exact amount and nature of that violence and grossness is unclear. Safety tools like Lines and Veils, and some expectation setting up-front, can mitigate this somewhat. But for me, I think this is a game best played with people I already know and trust.
Lesson learned: For Mörk Borg to shine, you really need the right group. It really isn’t a game for everyone. There are plenty of rules-lite OSR and OSR-adjacent games out there, so there’s no reason to grab Mörk Borg if everyone at the table isn’t willing to fully embrace the “doom metal album of a game” concept. (See the section on Index Card RPG below for one mechanically similar alternative, or take a look at Knave for an even lighter-weight game.)
The Experience
My first character in the home game was an Esoteric Hermit randomly generated by the Scumbirther webtool. With a whole stack of these randos at my disposal, I fully embraced the “ride him like I stole him” mentality for the character. I ate weird stuff. I explored rooms and cast spells with reckless abandon. That made for a lively first session. My character had his normal human hands replaced with giant beetle pinchers; blew one of those pinchers in half with a miscast spell; ate some food that made him gain nine pounds and lose a point of agility but gain a level of armor; smoked some crystals that decreased his Presence by 2 and increased his Strength by 2 and his Agility by 1.
Even with only one hit point, my guy lived longer than I thought he would. Omens make the game more survivable than it might look at first glance. But once you’re out of omens, things start going downhill quickly: our second session ended in a TPK.
One thing I’m not sure about is how well this would work for longer term play. For one thing, there’s the fragility of the characters once omens run out. That might be overcome with more cautious play. The other issue is the setting. It’s certainly a fun place to visit, but I’m not sure I would want to be part of it for a longer campaign. That said, Dark Sun has demonstrated that doomed, inhospitable worlds can be good for long-term play. (Side note: How cool would Mörk Sun be?)
Other thoughts/notes
- The index in the back of the book makes it easier to find stuff in the book than it seems like would be it would be given the chaotic graphic design.
- Character options, tables, etc. do a lot to pull you into the Mörk Borg world, though as I mentioned, it can only do so much if the GM, players, and the content aren’t all aligned.
- The game went very smoothly given that we weren’t familiar with the mechanics etc. Definitely easy to pick up for a session or two.
Index Card RPG comparison
I haven’t played Index Card RPG but it does appear to have a very similar foundation in terms of mechanics, which could be of interest to anyone who wants a similar but more robust and non-setting specific system. The commonalities I noticed:
- D20 roll-high with default difficulty of 12 (pretty common these days but bear with me)
- “Modifier only” stats.
- Spells are considered “Loot,” much like Mörk Borg’s scroll-based magic/powers system.
- Milestone-based advancement.
- Optional “Spell Burn”/spell misfire rule.
- A metacurrency (“Hero Coins”), though it’s not as powerful as “Omens” from Mörk Borg
- Similar approach to death/dying.
A couple of notable differences:
- Characters start out considerably tougher. (A luxurious 10 hit points!)
- ICRPG has a very interesting concept of “Effort,” which is like rolling for damage in other systems but can be applied in non-combat situations to give non-combat encounters the same sort of stakes that a combat encounter might.
- Armor works more like it does in D&D 5E and similar games.