RPG Review: Pigsmoke

Bubble, bubble toil and tenure…

Inspired by Harry Potter and the Unseen University from Discworld, Pigsmoke has players taking on the role of faculty at a magical school, dealing with tenure, backstabbing, and students trying to ruin your life.

As a game Powered by the Apocalypse, Pigsmoke thrives on minimal game master (called an MC here) prep and maximum player involvement. I’m not going to get into all the mechanics of PbtA and will be assuming you know the ruleset, but for those who don’t, the book does include the complete PbtA rules.

Magic actually plays a very minimal role in the game, mostly there for flavor. The two rules for magic are:

• It can be studied, with academic papers and breakthroughs in understanding and areas of specialist interest.
• It can be taught to others.

That’s all. Everything else is flavor, which I really love. This allows the magic to be there without worrying about the exact mechanics.

Your four basic attributes are Bureaucracy, Charisma, Research, and Sorcery. One thing I love is that unlike other Powered by the Apocalypse games, you don’t have a single character playbook, but two. One playbook will cover the character’s personality like The Jock, The Fake or The Politician, while the second one covers the magical subject your character teaches, Life and Death, Alchemy, or Paraveterinary Medicine. You’ll use both of these these to define your character.

The game has certain actions that are tagged as time-consuming. You can only do these once per week. The game expects the MC to track time, because characters can experience burnout, experiments can go awry, and it helps you determine how the story is progressing on toward the end of the school year. Also, when you do things, they can cost you Burnout. Since your characters aren’t running around getting beat up, Burnout is essentially their Hit Points. Certain moves will cause Burnout if you fail them. Once you max out, you quit the job, are fired, or retire, but can do one last amazing bit of spite or vengeance.

Basic moves are Delve Deeper (a time-consuming move), Publish (which you can only do once you’ve filled up your research track), Schmooze to charm another person, Scathe to insult someone, Teach (something teachers should probably spend a little time doing), Purchase Order (teachers always need something for class), Red Tape (another time-consuming move to cut through the bureaucracy), Cast a Spell, Adventuring (when you’re doing dangerous things), A Small, Incestuous World (where you can run into someone on campus or overhear some gossip), and Hospital Hospitality (for when you end up in the hospital).

The players together will also create the dean of the school, deciding what their name is, what their vision and wants are. Players will also flesh out the departments they belong to to make it more personal.

A large portion of the book is MC tips, explaining how exactly to get the players engaged, cause conflict, and how to play up the tropes of a magical school. It’s a really fantastic section that delves deeply into what can make the game actually click. The back of the book has a bunch of sample threats the heroes may have to face and what those threats’ agendas is. The Donor’s Kid, The Loudmouth, even the dreaded Human Resources can all make life hell for your academics.

I really love Pigsmoke. The art throughout is very entertaining, it gives great insight into the world of magical academia, and it hits every one of the tropes of the genre. The PbtA rules work FANTASTICALLY here. If you’re looking at playing Hogwarts from the other side of the teacher’s desk, you should definitely pick this up.

You can pick up Pigsmoke here (affiliate link).

Certain Death sent a copy of Pigsmoke to Dice Monkey for review.