Play investigators in 19th-century Scandinavia who uncover and confront folklore creatures, with a focus on mystery and dread.
From 31 firsthand play reports in 6 r/rpg threads. The threads alone average 7.5.
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213 r/rpg posts named it, October 2023 to October 2026.
Light. Hype 5.1 for its age.
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Vaesen is a mystery-first game of folkloric investigation. Research and talking come before fighting, and some tables have run whole campaigns with no combat. Players mostly praise the setting and how easy the dice system is to run. Their complaints are about the rulebook's organization and about how the published mysteries are built. Several of the threads contain only a handful of firsthand reports.
Each thread is rated for the play it describes, from the firsthand reports in it. Load one here or read it on Reddit.
Most people who ran or played Vaesen report a very good time, praising the mystery structure, the setting's mood and the easy running. A few found the system didn't support its fiction, the push-roll penalties harsh, or the published modules frustrating. 10 firsthand · 88 comments
People who ran Vaesen say it is easy to run, and several put it in the same complexity band as Mothership. The main costs they report are more prep, the work of building a satisfying mystery, and a badly organised rulebook and adventures. 10 firsthand · 38 comments
The thread is a review by a GM who has run Vaesen for a couple of months, plus a few other GMs. They enjoy the folkloric tone and the Catastrophe Countdown, where failure is a real option. The main friction is a badly organized book and published scenarios with long clue lists that are hard to run at the table. 5 firsthand · 22 comments
The thread is mostly about alternatives to Vaesen and a Quinns review, with only a few commenters describing their own play. Those players liked the setting, the adventures and the investigation-first play, but disliked the rulebook, the combat and clue-finding procedures, and the way characters become too competent in longer campaigns. 4 firsthand · 171 comments
The thread is mostly about choosing between Vaesen and Alien RPG's Chariot of the Gods for a one-shot, and most of it is advice or opinion rather than play reports. The only firsthand Vaesen report says Dance of Dreams took one roughly 3-hour session, and no one describes how it felt at the table. 1 firsthand · 14 comments
The thread is almost entirely about other games (Delta Green, The Between, Candela Obscura, Chronicles of Darkness and more). The only Vaesen play report is from the OP, who says they like it but that their players found character creation too limiting. 1 firsthand · 29 comments