Are You Already Playing Lacuna Part 1?

March 3, 2022

Blast from the Past/ Previews/ Roleplaying Games

While tidying up my office I rearranged and curated my collection of tabletop roleplaying games on display. Doing so unearthed a small press RPG I discovered many years ago when the terrific Inception movie came out and I wanted to bring the dream heist espionage scenario to the game table. Lacuna Part 1 from Memento Mori Theatricks nails it with this wonderful indie RPG where players take on the roles of secret agents sent into a dream world where they encounter more than they expect and mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

Inception meets Matrix meets funny shaped dice

Memento Mori Theatricks was started by Jared A. Sorensen in 1997 to publish tabletop RPGs. Sorensen is considered one of the founding fathers of indie roleplaying and published a variety of games including the critically-acclaimed InSpectres but for my taste Lacuna Part I is the cream of the crop.

Everything you need to play comes in a charming 6×9 softcover book starting with a short fiction piece evocative of the surreal dreamscape investigations in which players take part. Big concepts like the structure of this dream world called Blue City and the various color-coded layers comprising it, the secretive organization characters operate as agents for and the Hostile Personalities they’ll face intentionally leave out many details. As the Introduction puts it the best way to play this game is to play it because the intention is the game adapts to the perceptions of each individual group.

The main mechanic of Lacuna Part I revolves around characters’ Heart Rate. Since agents manifest in Blue City only as their minds’ avatars their Heart Rate represents the stress of exerting their will in the dream world. Agents freshly inserted into a new mission begin with a Resting Heart Rate and through interactions ideally hit their Target Heart Rate — careful to avoid their Maximum Heart Rate, which can lead to injury or even death.

Achieving Target Heart Rate takes place through the three attributes of Force, Instinct and Access along with a variety of talents related to each of these. Force represents any and all physical activity with instinct defining a character’s perception, reaction and intuition. Access meanwhile represents characters’ pull with their organization and affects their ability to requisition materials and information within Blue City similar to how people in the Matrix receive such things from an operator in the real world.

Advancement in Lacuna Part I incorporates Techniques, which are extraordinary abilities characters unlock through successful completion of missions. These can range from Asset techniques like being bulletproof, Skill techniques like understanding written material in Blue City (like in dreams this is incomprehensible otherwise) and Cover techniques like access to a safe house in Blue City. Most techniques require spending Commendation Points gained whenever a 6 is rolled on a single die. Advancement also includes Promotions through the organization’s ranks, which affects their security clearance and ability to reach deeper levels of Blue City.

Resolving actions in Lacuna Part 1 takes place through good old six sided dice. Players roll a number of these equal to whatever attribute they’re using with a target number of 11 and whether successful or not the die roll is added to the character’s Heart Rate. Talents, equipment and other factors can affect resolution and players can also choose to push the roll by making an extra die roll on a failure to hopefully hit the target (and increase their Heart Rate even further too).

A good deal of the book essentially provides worldbuilding concepts in succinct chunks, which I appreciate quite a lot. Since the broad strokes concept for the game is so clear these small sections give a ton of great ideas to build on without feeling like there’s an overwhelming amount of information to absorb. How Lacuna Part I plays out in your group is entirely up to you. For example the Deep Blue level is described as a place for missions that are part of an internal investigation and only accessible for special assignments but these are not detailed.

Tension and conflict in the game emerge through Static. This is the level of distrust and unreliability between characters in the field and those from the organization. Each level of Static (Low, Medium and High) covers a range and provides examples of Static events, which take place whenever Static increases. When High Static events occur the game begins introducing some of the even more bizarre elements like the Girl and Spidermen. Concepts like these are only hinted at throughout the book but the idea is there’s some sort of alien sentience deep within Blue City. In fact the book itself playfully explores this concept visually through the material. The further into the book you go the more you begin to see strange writings and spidery elements creeping onto the page.

Hopefully my spring cleaning discovery entices you to check out this fantastic indie RPG. Themes and elements similar to Inception and The Matrix in such a delightfully evocative open ended concept captured my imagination and I look forward to playing Lacuna Part I again (soon I hope!). When I played it years ago I did not explain the dream world concept to the players and instead let them figure it out during the game, which was an incredibly fun experience.

You can find Lacuna Part I over at DriveThruRPG right here.

*Featured image — Sinister secret agents with shadowy employers and mysterious pasts. A bizarre landscape built from six- billion human minds. Arachnid-headed beings that guard a war-torn borderzone. And all the worst that Mankind has to offer, stalking the alleys and crumbling buildings of a place called Blue City. Is it a dream? Is it a nightmare? Or is it just a game? And are you already Lacuna Part I?