Daniel (@dungeondive) returns to the dark, twisted world of Doom Pilgrim to examine the Black Bag expansion from Wacław Trey. The base game is almost an idle game—you draw cards, encounter terrible fates, accumulate keywords that trigger further doom, and watch your pilgrim’s inevitable demise unfold. This expansion plants seeds for something more.
The Black Bag introduces mini-cards drawn from literal black bags for random encounters between major events, plus an optional d20 dice system to occasionally resist the bad things. The complex dice rules add ‘lots’ to your character—containers of target numbers for avoiding specific doom types like madness, sickness, or betrayal. Talents and martyrdoms let you customise your pilgrim slightly before their preordained suffering. Daniel sees this as future-proofing: Wacław can add keywords to those containers in subsequent expansions. The whole thing still fits in Daniel’s beloved little box of doom, though he’s worried the upcoming Flails and Citadels standalone might finally overflow it.
Do you prefer games where doom is inevitable, or do you need at least the illusion of agency?