Like Outcast Silver Raiders, His Majesty the Worm (2024) is another massive RPG in a somewhat old-school mode that is A. Huge and B. Full of a concentration of creative energy that is disconcerting given A.

It is an exercise in megadungeon delving and the intention is, after some initial set-up, to allow GMs to run a session with minimal prep. It’s brilliant, and while it might seem a bit intimidating, I think this is a game that beginners would be well-served in checking out.

The entirety of the game, including combat, uses tarot cards for guidance and resolution. That’s right, no dice! I think this actually lowers the barrier to entry — tarot come equipped with both numbers and illustration that prod creativity and, if tarot deck is available, a poker deck, which you can get at any given dollar store, will do in a pinch. This double duty as both randomizer and creative prompt generator is central to play.

I am particularly enamored of the Meatgrinder, the “machine” the GM uses to run the dungeon crawl, which consists of triggers and tables that move the action along. Everything from the state of the torch (as with Shadowdark, light management is important here) to random encounters to weather to whatever else you might want to plug into the thing (which would be as easy as writing up a new table, really). Having run games for decades, the metaphor of trying to keep this loud, dangerous machine on task while it is trying to shake itself to pieces feels particularly apt. There’s so much more (the layout is so crisp and clean, the art evocative, the way the tarot cards build the city is ingenious, and on and on) but I can’t possibly cover what is basically a 400-page book here. But know that those 400 pages are all you need to run a game that can last for years.