In order to give newcomers an example of the basic mechanics of The Labyrinth I will walk you through a Phase below to prepare you for situations as they arise during your journey. It looks like a lot at first, but it's very easy to pick up. Nothing described below requires anything more than common sense. I've tried to embolden the most important bits, so if you just scroll and read the bolded things you will get the bullet points. Feel free to ask me any questions you may still have by the end of this document. Most of the stuff below won't come into play right away - the complexity will build. Before we begin I need to introduce our five prisoners for this example.

Players (5)

Niney Patterson Boone Rita Lee

The Labyrinth will take place over a number of game Phases. Each phases will run for approximately 24 hours - so ideally a new Phase will be created for each day the game runs. During the course of a Phase, players will inhabit a specific point within the Labyrinth. Because players may be divided into several different groups, there may be multiple phases occurring at the same time with each set in a different location in the Labyrinth.

Players typically will only ever see the events they are present for, and may only communicate with the players in the room with them. They will then discuss the game and what their plan of action will be moving forward. They may perform any available actions presented by the game master. All players must choose an exit prior to the Phase ending. Once the phase ends, players will be moved through the exit they selected and will be presented with an entirely new room to explore and interact with for the next Phase.

Inside the Labyrinth you can't count on many things, but the one constant will be your journal. You will each gain access to these once the pre-game has concluded and the first Phase begins. There will be a number of pinned topics in your journal, explained below. This is the only section of the Labyrinth to which you will have constant access.

Your Journal

Role Thread: You will find your role and its mechanics here, along with your win condition. All role actions are submitted here. Inventory: Your current inventory will be updated here by the game master. If you want to use an item you will submit the action here. Game Updates: This is where private updates from actions or events will be posted for your character alone.

Outside of those topics, you have free reign to do what you want with your journal. Players that have kept up to date notes and made maps have fared much better than those that rely on their memory alone. The journals are also a treat for the host to read during and the other players to read at the end, so I encourage people to utilize the journal. There will be no facet of the game that allows another player to read your journal so do not be shy about posting suspicions or your plans for world domination.

Every Phase will open with flavor describing events that have transpired and anything the players need to know about the room they currently inhabit. The immediate room will be described. Beneath that there may be additional instructions for how to proceed inside the room. These will be labeled as Actions, which will be self-explanatory. There may also be Items available for looting - first come, first serve. Next will be a list of all the players in the room with you. These are, for the most part, the only players you will be able to interact during that specific Phase.

Below is an example of our five players entering a simple room.

Phase 1

The trio pushed into the room, eager to explore. Niney immediately made his way to a box that was situated in the middle of the room. In addition to the box, a few useful odds and ends were scattered nearby. Patterson and Rita joined their friend in reading the message on the box. "OPEN ME." They shot each other a look; was anyone going to do it? Actions: Open the box? Submit ##Open the box in the Phase thread to open it. Items: Hatchet Kevlar Shoe Players (3): Niney Patterson Rita Exits: North South West

The thread will at this point be opened for people to decide what they will do.

Everyone will be randomly designated a role prior to the initial Phase beginning. You will also be given a win condition that is tied to your role, though that can change. Beneath this will be flavor text and a description of your role. There are three types of roles in the Labyrinth:

Role Types

Active: Players with active roles must manually submit their actions when they want to perform them. Passive: Players with passive roles will have their roles activated by the game master when the conditions are met. Neutral: Players with a neutral role offer no benefits in the way of ability. They are vanilla.

Make sure you fully understand your role before playing. Not all roles will be positive for the players that have them. Some roles may present the players with a handicap they have to play around. Much like win conditions, roles are likewise not set in stone. Things are constantly changing inside the Labyrinth.

Example Role Thread

Role: Butcher Description: You have spent your life trampled underfoot by the world. A person can only take so much. One morning you awoke and when you felt the sun upon your face, life suddenly made sense. Everyone had to die. Everyone. But you have to find them, first. Win Condition: You win if every other player in the game is killed. Role Type: Active Role Ability: Once per phase, you may scout the maze for the location of the nearest player not in your current room. You will be told how many rooms away they are, and in what direction.

In our example game that we paused above, Patterson has this role. He wins when every other player in the Labyrinth is dead. One per phase he can use his ability to track the closest stranger to his group. At any point in the phase he would post to use this ability in the Role Thread in his journal. Before the end of the Phase he would receive the following update:

Role Result

Phase 1 Results Your eyes flutter shut and you tune your senses to the Labyrinth. You can almost taste their blood. There is someone 2 rooms to the North.

This gives Patterson an opportunity to push his group to meet up with them or try to talk his team into going away from the other players.

Many items will be available throughout the Labyrinth. They can be looted from rooms, received as rewards from challenges, or as a result of an action in a room. Once you obtain an item your Item Thread will be automatically updated to reflect your acquisition. Each item will feature a description and explanation of how it can be used. A player may use an item they receive at nearly any point during the Phase by posting to do so in their Inventory Thread.

In addition to looting, players may choose to drop or trade items. If an item is discarded, a notice will be posted in the Phase thread by the game master and the opening post will be updated to reflect the new item. It is then up for grabs. If a player decides to trade an item the player that receives the gifted item will be alerted that they received an item, but not who it came from. This makes it possible to plant things on people... if you so desire.

To retrieve an item available in a room, a player must post ##Take: Item Name. This can be done in the Phase thread, or in private in their Inventory Thread. The Phase thread will be updated to show that the item was taken, but not by whom. Items may NOT be picked up in batches. If there are three items in a room you need to post three separate actions in order to receive them.

If a player dies the contents of their Inventory Thread will be dumped into the room in which they died and will be available for pilfering. Now we are going to rejoin our example game. In the example, Patterson has posted to loot the Hatchet in his private Inventory Thread. At the same time, Rita posted in her Inventory thread to get the Kevlar.

Example Item

Hatchet A trustworthy weapon that has weathered many encounters. Despite the wear, the blade is still razor sharp.

Example Item

Kevlar Kevlar body armor that will absorb the first attempt on your life.

With the acquisition of the Hatchet, Patterson sees an opening in our example game. In order to win he has to make sure every other player is dead. So he readies his Hatchet and posts to attack Rita in his Inventory Thread. His reasoning is that Rita will be dead and Niney will have nowhere to go. What Patterson doesn't know is that Rita grabbed the Kevlar which will protect her.

Once Patterson submits the action to attack Rita, something like the following will be posted into the Phase thread:

Example Attack

Patterson wasted no time - as soon as the hilt of the Hatchet was in his hand he was upon Rita. The girl was caught off-guard in the moment but not surprised over all. The hatchet bounced off Rita's chest. Patterson took a step back and began brainstorming how he would survive this small misunderstanding.

The result? Rita is still alive and a bit upset that Patterson tried to claim her life. This leaves Patterson facing down the gallows, which leads us to...

When we last checked in, Patterson was in a pickle. It goes without saying that the other two players aren't happy. They can't risk continuing their journey with Patterson. But neither of them have an item with which they could defend themselves. This is where Lynching can come into play. Lynching Coe from the game of Epic Mafia. It serves as an emergency measure. During any Phase a player may vote to Lynch another player by posting ##Lymch: Name. This must be posted in the Phase thread.

If more than half of the players in a given room vote to Lynch a player, that player will be killed by the mob. Lynching should be treated as a last resort. It is worth keeping in mind that someone that is acting suspicious isn't necessarily evil. While it may seem advantageous to the group to Lynch all suspicious people, this would not serve them down the line. Every player has a purpose they can serve.

That being said, in our example game, Patterson is toast. Niney and Rita have quietly debated the situation in the corner opposite of Patterson. They reach an agreement and both post to ##Lynch: Patterson. This gives their vote the majority, so the Phase would be updated with something along the lines of:

Death Update

Rita pressed her finger into Patterson's chest and began to berate the doctor while backing him against the wall. Patterson stuttered and fell over his words trying to explain the innocent reason he had bounced a hatchet off of Rita's torso, but she wasn't having it. She started to choke the doctor - though he was frail it wasn't proving to be an easy task. Rita stepped back and called for help. Nine swooped in and bounced Patterson's head off the wall at his back. Hard. A few more times and then he slung Patterson across the floor. Rita followed her attacker, stomping on his chest and face until his writhing body went still. The following items have become available Hatchet

Patterson is dead and his items are up for the taking. The groups feels safe for the time being. At this point Patterson's private journal would be updated with the flavor of his death and his access to any other part of the game will be removed.

No one wants to die, but it happens. Death is a necessary part of the Labyrinth. The rooms of the Labyrinth are infested with traps meant to claim your life. When a player dies their access to anything but their personal journal will be revoked. It is very important that dead players continue to abide by the rules once they are dead. Do not talk to anyone about the game. Do not tell anyone anything about the game. Just... be dead.

Because death isn't necessarily permanent. You shouldn't expect to be resurrected, but there are situations in which it can happen. If this were to come to pass an update would be posted in your journal and you would be brought back in to the room where you were resurrected. If there are other players in the room when the deceased comes back to life, a new thread will be made so that the deceased doesn't have access to discussion that happened before they were alive again.

There are no limits on how many times a player can be killed or revived. If dead players discuss the game with anyone and their character is targeted to be resurrected, they will not rejoin the game. I can't stress this enough. Typically players will become emotional upon death and this may lead to them lashing out angrily in some form. Just remember that it's only a game and you will have time to yell at someone at the journey's end.

One other thing to note is that a player's role and win condition will NOT be revealed upon death. These will only be revealed at the end of the game.

Some rooms in the Labyrinth will offer additional Actions that can be performed inside. When a room has Actions listed, players may follow the listed instructions to to perform some kind of task. The nature of these tasks will vary from room to room. The results will be posted either publicly or privately, depending on the specifics of the Action.

Back to our example. If you remember there was a box that was begging to be opened way back at the beginning of this hypothetical Phase. A player would post ##Open Box in the Phase thread to open the box - and Niney does just that now that the Patterson situation was handled. The following result would be posted publicly after he submitted his action.

Example Action

Niney turned his attention to the box that had taunted him since they stepped foot in the room. What's the worst that could happen? Niney excitedly threw the lid open to retrieve the treasures inside but came face to face with an unfortunate sight; what was clearly an explosive of some sort was three seconds from detonating. Niney's eyes had just enough time to go wide before the boom. When the smoke settled, Niney was a mess. Rita hovered over him, looking at him nervously. She leaned down to shake him. Somehow it seemed that he was still alive, but he was unconscious. Rita approached the box Niney had opened. While he received a concussion for his troubles, she was able to see something in the box. The following items have become available Exit Key

Where Niney was too eager, Rita was measured and reasonable. She knew a box in the Labyrinth that said OPEN ME likely wasn't a great idea. However in his recklessness Niney had uncovered the Exit Key which would lead them out of the Labyrinth.

In our game above, Niney wound up knocked out because of the box he opened. Being knocked out is one of several status changes that exist within the Labyrinth. They can be brought on by any number of factors, often unexpectedly. When a player is afflicted, the result will be posted in their private Update Thread. While knocked out, Niney may no longer access the Phase thread. He can still use his private journal though. The effects of this specific instance will wear off by the end of the phase, and by that time he will be granted access to the Phase again if he survives the day.

Every room in the Labyrinth will have a list of exits presented in the opening post. During the Phase the players will deliberate and decide which way they want to exit. Not every player has to go the same way. The group may decide to weigh the risk and split up to cover more ground. To choose an exit, a player must post ##Exit: Direction. Each player must post this individually, either in the Phase thread or privately in their Game Update thread.

Players must exit a room within two phases. If they do not, the Labyrinth will take their life and they will be removed from the game. This is necessary to keep people from staying put and holding out in one room.

If multiple players are in the same room, you may instead choose to follow another player. This is done by posting ##Follow: Name either in the Phase thread or privately in your Game Update thread. If you've elected to follow someone, you will continue to exit the same way as the person you're following until either the person dies or the following player posts to exit a room on their own.

By default everyone will automatically follow the first person to exit during a phase. This means that if there are a group of five in a room and only one person posts to exit the room, all the other players will exit the room in the same direction. To avoid this players may post to exit in a different direction, choose to follow a player, or post to ##Exit: Stay to remain in the room. If the first person in a room to choose decides to stay, everyone that doesn't post to exit will stay with them.

If players do not exit a room they will be given a warning during the next Phase telling them that they must exit by the end of the Phase. The only exceptions to the rule are if a new player or players enters the room, the time limit resets for the previous occupants. If a player is struck with a Status Change that renders them unable to move or act, this rule will not kill them. Players suffering from States Changes will not be marked inactive until two phases of inaction after recovering their status.

Once a player is marked as Inactive by the game master, fellow players may then opt to ##Push: Name through whatever exit they decide. This will take the place of an exiting action, and will see the group using the Inactive player as a human shield from traps as they explore new rooms. This was put in place to make sure any dead weight is still marginally useful.

Back to our example game, Rita has decided that Niney is a liability and plans to leave him unconscious In the room. Rita has posted to ##Exit: North. Given their situation, this is all that happens until the end of the phase.

Once 24 hours have passed the Phase will end. The following message will be posted about an hour before Phase change begins.

Phase Change

The Labyrinth doors have unlocked. It is time to move on. All players who have not yet posted to exit the room may do so now. The phase will end in an hour. No other actions will be accepted this phase.

Once the game master has posted this, any players who have yet to exit may still do so, but players who have already posted may not change their exit after the warning. In addition all room, role and item actions will no longer be accepted either. Changing the Phase can take a long time from a hosting perspective, and late submissions would serve to only make everything take longer.

Approximately an hour after this message appears the Phase thread will be removed. The Phase will no longer be visible to anyone in the game but the host until the game ends. If players have opted to stay in the room and no new players are entering, the Phase thread will not be removed. Those players will still have access to it for as long as they remain in the room.

Once the Phase is removed players will be moved onto the room that is through the exit that they each took. This may mean the group of players becomes separated. The next Phase will be posted as soon as possible after this, and the process will start anew from the top. This is the basic essence of the game. Phase change itself can take anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple of hours depending on just how much is going to be changing going into the next game Phase.

As a note, if a player votes to exit a room and another group "passes" them, the lone player will be forced back into the room they were exiting from. For instance: if in our example game Rita exits North and a group of two or more players are in that room and chose to ##Exit: South, all of these players would encounter each other and wind up in the room with the unconscious Niney.

This is to avoid situation where players pass one another unintentionally. The majority group will always take exiting priority over the minority group. So in the aforementioned situation, the new Phase would take place in the room Rita has yet to leave. If the groups passing one another are of equal numbers, the player that posted to exit first will be considered the priority and the other group will be forced back into the room from which they were exiting.

In spite of all of this information, when we return to our example game we're going to presume that Rita successfully exited to the North.

To add to the danger (and fun) of the Labyrinth, rooms the players enter are occasionally rigged with dangerous traps. Some may be fatal, some may cause Status Changes and others yet undisclosed side effects. Typically the first player to enter the trapped room will be the one to activate the trap and suffer the consequences. While there are items and roles that may prevent the effects of the traps altogether, activating a trap almost certainly has dire consequences, so think carefully before rushing to an exit.

Back in our example Phase, the situation is about to change for Rita. She had posted to ##Exit: North and the room above her is rigged with a fatal trap. However this is not the end for her. If you recall, Patterson used his role and located a player two rooms North prior to his death. In actuality there were two players in this room. Stonehard Lee and Boone. They had their own Phase thread invisible to Niney, Patterson and Rita.

During the course of their phase, Lee and Boone decided to ##Exit: South. Lee went first and his action to exit was posted before Rita's. Since this pair were two rooms north of Rita and Rita went North while they went South, all three players will meet in the trapped room. But Lee will enter first, winning the tragedy lottery.

Example Phase 2

Rita entered the new room cautiously. She knew the danger, but she didn't have a choice at this point. Immediately the room looked... wrong. The walls seemed to glow a sickly green. Lording over the room from above some sort of vicious contraption. From the North came a noise which caused Rita to freeze in her tracks. The Northern exit had opened, and in walked a towering stone golem with an ape on his shoulder. It was Stonehard Lee and Boone. Lee's face was set with excitement upon seeing Rita and he began to make a beeline to embrace her. Rita shouted a warning, but it came too late. *Click* Lee's heavy gait had depressed the trigger in the middle of the room. His eyes went skyward as the contraption above whirred to life. Boone leapt from the golem's shoulder into Rita's arms who was prepared and caught him. Lee stood stoic in the face of danger and thumped his broad chest. "Puny trap can't pierce stone." The man oozed confidence, misplaced. A panel on the Western wall opened and an enormous piston punched violently from the darkness into Lee's shoulder, sending fractured boulders everywhere. He dropped to his knee as the piston was mechanically retracted and reset. And then the whirring began again. "Oh. Goodbye, friends. Be safe." Lee managed right before the piston obliterated his face, turning his head into gravel. Stonehard Lee was dead, and the room mourned. Players (2): Boone Rita Exits: North South Labyrinth Exit (Locked)

We've reached the end of our example game. Rita and Boone have discovered a room containing the way out of the Labyrinth. This is door is noted as being locked in the same description. If an exit is marked as Locked it will require you to use an item or other means of breaching the door before the exit can actually be taken. Any exits prior to unlocking will not count.

Fortunately, Rita has the Exit Key from the box Niney opened. At this point if Boone was evil he might attempt to kill Rita if he had a role or item to do so. In this example Boone shares the same win condition as Rita though. Both want to exit the Labyrinth, so Rita uses the Exit Key and they make their way out of the Labyrinth.

The game ends at this point because a player has achieved their win condition. Lee, Rita and Niney all shared a win condition so they will all win together. All dead players and any living players with different win conditions will at this point lose the game. Luckily for Niney he was only unconscious. Once the game ends the game master will unlock all parts of the board so that everything is visible to everyone, and the ending of the game will be posted. In the past the end game discussion/reunion has been very enjoyable.