Mörk Borg

"I have a secret game that I'd like to play. Oh it's a very nice game, it's a lovely game. It's a game of fun, and a game of adventure! A game of rats! And lice! And the black death! A game of speared eyeballs and dripping guts, and the smell of... Rotting gardenias."

– AM, from I have no mouth and I must scream

"Mörk Borg? Ain't that the TTRPGs pseudo-DnD nerds play because it came from Sweden and the art is weird?"

– Anon, in every Mörk Borg thread.

Mörk Borg, also known as Not Gork Mork (or was it Mork Gork?), Björk the RPG, Tumblr does Dungeons and Dragons, World's most confusing game book, Swedish Dark Souls in paper form, Fa/tg/uys' nightmare, Grimdark Medieval IKEA, Game of Skubs or Mork Borg for those who don't know how to put tremas atop their Os on their keyboard, is a Tabletop RPG reminescent of GURPS and Dungeons & Dragons (naturally) set in a pre-apocalyptic world which is about to end altogether and you play as a filthy scavenger on a quest for redemption, artefacts, gold, or all three at the same time before your life comes to an abrupt if predictable end. As you can see, it isn't the most lighthearted thing on the planet.

Mörk Borg has made itself quite a reputation these days, primarily because of its gritty atmosphere, post-modern and punk art that makes it look like it belongs in a new age museum (or a Hot Topic, depending on your age and level of contempt), its confusing booklet wherein lies the rules, its dungeon-crawling action and its teeth-clentching difficulty. Some even theorize that the game was made by the angriest DM that ever exist. It's hard to get into Mörk Borg, mark our words. It is so niche in its form that even /tg/, of all things, can't bring itself to speak or play this game. It is THAT polarizing.

And why's that you may ask? Well, beside the aesthetics that would remind metal heads of a new-age doom metal concert, Mörk Borg is unapologetically, incredibly, ball-bustingly DIFFICULT. Even if you have the nicest, kindest, most charming and caring DM on the planet, the game wants you dead. The game is so goddamn crunchy that it wants you to feel like you live in a world that will do anything in its power to kill you, it wants you to feel that everything is on the brink of extinction and you're going with everything going out with the storm. And it does so by punishing for anything that you do wrong. It's not even like Dark Souls, because at least Dark Souls rewards you for doing good.

Do you have the required level of autism to read the confusing game booklet that is such a mess to read, its Index is at the end of it, your character sheet comes before the pages that explain how any of your stats and perks work, and most of the pages are filled with fluff that does not serve any purpose until you get to the end-game? But most importantly, do you have the testicular fortitude to go through this literal hellspawn of a game that will stab, punch, kick, torture, murder, axe and club you till you pass out?

If so, welcome to Mörk Borg, you're gonna ruck blood.

The System

Once one gets around the obtuse visuals within the game book that could give even a Dwarf Fortress player pause, the realization will come in that the system is not THAT complicated. Aun Contraire, this being a retroclone RPG (Albeit one very deviant from the norm), the rules are fairly simple - it's a d20 system with some variations on the classic formula.

You have 4 basic stats - Agility, Presence, Strength and Toughtness. All of them are self-explanatory, minus presence which is the odd man-out of the stat group; it doubles as both your charisma and the general spellcasting stat. Tests are done in typical d20 fashion, with a more "modern" roll over formula to it, with difficult rates assigned for each type of roll one makes. Actions in combat usually default that difficult rate to 12.

In combat, you roll your attacks against enemies while also rolling defense with no rolls made by the DM's NPCs - this might remind some players of Dungeon World and it's system having a similar attitude towards enemies and how their attacks are rolled (or rather, not rolled) against the players. Notably, armor doesn't make it harder to be hit but reduces the damage one takes instead, with the higher armor tiers trading agility, including your capability to dodge, to survive an extra punch or two during a fight.

Magic (called Powers/Scrolls here) is powerful but unstable in a manner that would make Dungeon Crawl Classics blush over how butt-fucked one can be over it's misuse and how hard you can butt-fuck your enemies with a bit of luck in your side, because if you fail to use a spell not only does it not work, but you also take d2 damage (remember this is a retroclone so each goblet of life counts in here) and you lose the capability to cast any spell for 1 hour, essentially fucking over any dedicated spellcaster in the party and leaving them sucking their thumb for one hour as their main usefulness is removed.

Omens are a counterpart of sorts to the inspiration die system from fifth edition D&D, by default a character starts with d2 omens and regains them after a long rest. They have a variety of uses, from rerolling a dice roll to negating a crit or fumble to lowering a test's difficult by -4 and are pretty handy and generous in a otherwise sadistic system that seems to take joy at your frustration at the game's unfairness.

Probably the single biggest, double-barreled "Fuck You!" Mörk Borg has comes from how you level up - and the mechanics behind leveling up. Unlike most retroclones, there's no XP system, you level up when the DM feels like it, which is fine and dandy, specially for players less inclined towards the sadism style of old-school games. The "Fuck You" moment comes from the fact you roll a d6 against every ability, it it's lower than it's bonus, you decrease it, if it's higher, your increase it. So yes, the game punishes you for accomplishing things and having a powerful character by increasing the chance you get weaker every time you level up. To be fair on Mörk Borg, the health mechanics in the level up system is much less of an asshole towards the players, you just roll a 6d10 and if the result is higher than your current health you increase it by d6, no retarded stat-decreasing shinegans.

Character Creation, as with most things in the book, is a mix inovation and throwback to other retroclones, the game has a typical Honest Rolls Character method if one chooses to pick an optional class, otherwise, it's 4d6, drop the lowest result instead, offering a choice of either having useful character bonuses at the cost of shitty stats or a higher chance at decent stats at the cost of specialization and abilities otherwise restricted to the "cool guys" at your party. And since the classes get bonuses to their stats most people just choose to play with the "optional" classes in spite of this "dillema" anyway.

Oh, we mentioned "optional" classes? Yeah, they are quite an interesting affair, as you will see next session.

The Classes

Classes in Mörk Borg are the expected result of a Dark Fantasy setting that's even shittier than the usual fare. Every class is a mix of a tormented, lost, deranged and desperate somebody - which to be honest, is not that of an unfair description of someone who is autistic enough to go on D&D-style adventures in a world that's edgier than Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay at it's worst.

Classes get a special starting HP and omen dice, plus an exclusive unique power/artifact/ability to their class, which are generally pretty useful, though sometimes limited in use or vulnerable to loss during game sessions. Fan books add dozens of fan-made classes, helped by the fact they are pretty simple in design with the only "real effort" coming from making up the class concept in the first place but still allowing for the creation of unique and creative adventurers scum types. In the OG book, there are 6 classes in total:

Third-Party Books

One of Mörk Borg's greatest strenghts is how easy it is to create third-party books for it. Matter of fact, the game basically encourages you to use them. Most of them bring a twist to its simple rules, make balance changes, introduces new classes and monsters (considering the original booklet only had twelve of them), and guarantees that you'll get a different experience every time you change books. Sounds good? What's that? You don't wanna use them? Well too bad, because everyone is using them. Matter of fact, you'll notice how quick the game gets brutal on you, so having an additional book that actually helps you getting somewhere is not necessary, but MANDATORY at this point.

Most of these Third-Party booklets can be find on Ex-Libris, but if you want something more "official", then we recommend that you use the official secondary booklets Mörk Borg's website offers you for free. The fact that it is official should probably raise a red flag, and for good measure, since it will only contribute to the amount of extra-torture you're gonna get. Some are less perverted in their design and offer you some very interesting mechanics that can come in handy during your quest. Just remember, anything that can help you can also equally butt-fuck you out of nowhere.