Il Fantasma del Giallo: The Phantom of the Yellow

Welcome to the Yellow - introduction

Il Fantasma del Giallo is a collaborative, narrative- and character-driven TTRPG. You play disgraced Actors unable to escape the pull of the strange cinematic world of the Yellow, a narrative dimension of brutal murder, dive bars and dimly lit streets. Forced to live out a seemingly endless sequence of violent European murder mysteries, your Actors must discover dark truths about their past to have any hope of escape. Hunt for the clues to your lost memories, and find the forgotten and unforgivable misdeeds that earned you your place in this purgatory. 

Films can't last forever, and sooner or later you will return to the Real. Ask questions, seek memories, resolve old grudges, even try to escape if you like. It won't last. You're drawn here, as if driven by some ancient migratory instinct. You have a purpose; a doom. There's no way to leave without resolving it, one way or another. 

And so you will go back into the Yellow. You must. Back to questioning reprobates at dive bars about brutal murders. Back to running from hulking shadows on dimly lit streets, the glint of cold steel flashing in the corner of your eye. Back to mistrust, back to lies, back to hidden agendas and underhanded schemes. Back to the killing and the dying. Perhaps, through it all, you'll find out why you're here...and why you deserve to be.

Drawing from magical realist and neo-noir storytelling traditions, Il Fantasma uses a trick-taking card system and is heavily inspired by metatextual art, like The Twilight Zone, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, and the Giallo genre of Italian thrillers. 

Giallo has its roots in Noir cinema, mystery prose, and post-war Neorealism. These films don't avert their gaze from the dark side of humanity, but revel in vice and violence. Giallo are not concerned with the innate evil, monsters and magic of Gothic cinema, but more humanistic horrors - strangers at the door, the enigmatic grin of a jackbooted official, an empty street in the dead of night. In Giallo, evil is not born, it's chiselled from the mold of a corrupt world.

If you’ve never seen a Giallo film, never fear - the game is designed from the ground up to be accessible. Just by following the mechanics as written, you’ll create authentically Giallo stories. 

Cinema Verite - the flow of play

The man yelled “action” and we’re entering the Yellow. The studio is gone. The cameras are gone. The crew, the lighting rigs, the loitering stagehands, the director, the actors waiting for their shot, all gone. The set lingers, but what was once a facade is now just a place. 

In Il Fantasmo Del Giallo you play Actors, but when they step into the cinematic dimension of the Yellow, you also become their Roles, characters that seem completely real until the credits roll. The two personalities bleed together, in more ways than one.

In the Yellow, you are hunted by The Killer, an entity formed from pure narrative. Unstoppable, unknowable, they are everyone and no one - that is, until they are ready to be someone.

Your Role may die, but your Actor will live on, whether they want to or not; newly burdened with passions, fears, and a bevy of horrible experiences.

When they return to the the Real the narrative power of the Yellow clings to Actors like morning dew. Memories long-forgotten roil into their brains with the urgency of last night's cocktails, carrying a similar quality of regret, but also newfound powers. 

Reality bends where it needs to, and the energy and talent of new acquantances is there for the taking - Insiders whose expertise can be exploited in the Yellow...but not without consequence. 

Commedia della Morte - character Archetypes

Your Actor may choose from 9 Archetypes - typecastings that grant strange powers within the Yellow. You could be a:

• Crook - One who lives beyond the borders of legality.
• Don - A character unashamed to wield their power over others.
• Visionary - A creative radical who values expression above all else.
• Inquisitor - The relentless seeker of truths, regardless of the consequences. 
• Downtrodden - The voice of the forgotten, the abused, the resentful.
• Lamb - A (seemingly) pure light in a fog of corruption. 
• Mystic - An oracle, a speaker of impossible truths. 
• Libertine - An experiential troubadour, unconcerned with boundaries of morals or taste.
• Wanton - The reckless sort who lives fast and dies young, a waster of love and money. 

Use events and experiences drawn from the Yellow to remember your Actor’s shady past, form new character bonds, and unlock new Archetype abilities.

You may even discover why you’re trapped here. You might wish you hadn't.

Mechanics of Murder - the game design

Il Fantasma del Giallo is split between two realities - the Real, the strange purgatory in which the Actors are trapped; and the Yellow, the dimension built not of sight and sound, but of narrative. Characters alternate between playing Roles within the Yellow – accumulating experiences, Truths, and Trauma – and using those resources in the Real to build their backstories, discover hidden mysteries, and perhaps find some way to escape this existence (but I wouldn’t get your hopes up). 

Within the film world of the Yellow, the mystery narrative is built seamlessly through collaboration - and not even the Director knows where the plot is going. Scenes are drafted as you play, with the Leads, Clues, and Truths that you acquire contributing to a growing web of vice and deception. Reality bends and backfills as the same pieces of information slip hazily back and forth between truth and lies. At the end of a film, the waveform collapses, and The Killer is unmasked - with one of the Actors left holding the knife. 

The storytelling systems in this game are built around a central theme of Giallo cinema - unreliability. Space is warped, time is bendable, and no fact can be established that can't later be recontextualised. 

Truths become lies. Confessions become delusions. Allies become enemies. 

Victims become killers.

Back in the Real, play is more freeform. Your characters build upon the events of the Yellow, using the Truths uncovered there to remember events, places and people from their pasts, and to advance their characters and acquire new abilities. Characters will also have to deal with the consequences of their actions in the Yellow, particularly if they made use of Insiders - non-player characters whose talents can be exploited in the film world at the cost of their real-world safety and happiness. 

The game uses a bespoke card-based trick-taking system to resolve fights, arguments, chase scenes, and other such events. When two characters have opposing aims, a conflict is initiated, and bidding rounds are played with a back-and-forth exchange of narrative. Each conflict can be extended and escalated for some time, in theory, but the longer it goes on, the bigger the pile of Trauma gets. Whoever loses the conflict, takes the Trauma and all the narrative consequences this implies. 

Failure is not truly failure, as the very things that will get you killed or implicated in the Yellow are the building blocks to uncovering your memories, advancing your character, and discovering the mysteries of the Real.

At first glance, the Real seems just like a normal city. Picturesque, even. But there's something strange. It's as if buildings, streets and cobblestones could tell lies. The quaint scenery but a thin veneer of makeup on a days-old corpse.

The air is so thick you can almost feel it roil and congeal in your wake. The sun-blasted and peeling plaster gives the tight streets of narrow stucco’d houses a shrivelled, emaciated quality - like an apple left to wither in the midday sun. Decor, signs and posters create a queasy hyperreality, as saturated in hue as they are in grime. There’s an emptiness in the eyes of the residents here, and a brittleness to the landscape. Even the flourishing young saplings clinging to the surrounding hillocks seem primed to shatter into sharp shards of green glass. 

There’s nothing stopping you from leaving, and yet it can’t be done. The roads are closed the day you rent a car. The rail workers are on strike the day you buy a ticket. An impenetrable fog rolls into the hills on the day you don a sturdy pair of walking boots. Nobody had heard of this place before you arrived, and yet everyone you need to talk to seems to end up here. Reality seems to be coalescing, congealing, to keep you here for as long as it takes. If only it were more clear what "it" even is. 

Despite having a deliberately loose setting and no singular overarching mystery, the final book for Il Fantasma del Giallo will contain a multitude of prompts and advice for generating your own strange european city, sinister film studio, and underlying conspiracy. This includes tables of prompts, guidance on structuring new elements and when to introduce them, and a set of pre-made basic settings and conspiracies for your group to start from. 

Close Up - the book

The book will be your guide to the Yellow. It contains:

• The game system, containing all the rules and guidance you’ll need to run short or long campaigns, as well as one shots. 
• 9 Actor Archetypes, and a full campaign system for plumbing the depths of their sins.
• Prompts to help you create new film premises, Roles for those films, chararacteristics of the city, and non-Actor characters to populate both realities with. 
• A breakdown of the settings, themes, and character types of the Giallo oeuvre, including a potted history of Italian cinema. 
• Extensive information for Directors, including fleshed-out suggestions and prompts for the mysteries behind the studio and the films within the Yellow.
• Discussions of the themes within the Giallo genre and how to tackle them — both those that have aged well and those that haven’t. 
• Unique, evocative artwork inspired by the posters of 60s/70s European cinema. 

Also available are the Collector's Edition and Premiere Edition - fancy rebound copies of the rulebook crafted by the master booksmiths at Creative Quest UK. You can see some of their handiwork below, as well as on their instagram page. 

Extras and Addons

This Kickstarter only involves one physical product: the rulebook. However, there is a range of digital add-ons available. 

Original Digital Soundtrack

Composed by Vortigan King, synth specialist, this OST will feature 10 original tracks - one theme for each of the nine Archetypes, plus one for The Killer. The soundtrack follows in the tradition of the great Giallo composers of the ‘60s and ‘70s, such as Ennio Morricone and Goblin. Perfect for setting the mood for your evenings of vice and deception…

Effigies of Death - STL Bust Collection

A range of 3D printable character busts, one for each Archetype, plus one for The Killer. Scaled and supported for both resin and filament printing, these busts are perfect for painting and displaying, or for using as markers on the murder map or for your place at the table. 

Twisted Little Lives - STL Miniatures Collection

A range of 3D printable 28mm scale miniatures, one for each Archetype, plus one for The Killer. Ideal for use in any given pulp wargame, for display, or for use as markers and visual aids during a game of the TTRPG. 

Community Copies

Both community PDFs and community books are available as Addons. Community PDFs will be listed for free, to be claimed on a first-come-first-serve basis. Community books will be donated to gaming clubs, libraries, and other community driven spaces. 

Prevue

You can check out a recorded one-shot session using a playtest draft of the game right here:

You can also start playing the game yourself right away by getting the free Quickstart version of Il Fantasma del Giallo! Those who get the Quickstart will also receive a prototype bust of The Killer as an STL file, as well as a Playingcards.io room file to help run Il Fantasma online. 

You can also preview two of the tracks from the original OST here and here.

For ongoing insights into the development process, consider joining the Hardy Roach Games Patreon, which will also help support continued development of this and other projects.

Witness Accounts - testimonials

"For a non-TTRPG person such as myself, Il Fantasma del Giallo is a truly unique experience. Its clever design allows for smooth and comfortable creativity. Not often can you embody a delightfully terrible person while building a grim cinematic mystery with your friends (and foes)."

- Märten Rattasepp (Disco Elysium, Pentiment) 

"A complex, fascinating, and deeply loving homage to the world of Giallo and collaborative player storytelling."

- Xalavier Nelson (Hypnospace Outlaw, El Paso Elsewhere)

"Creating mysteries in tabletop RPGs is hard; creating non-prep mysteries is borderline impossible. And yet, Il Fantasma del Giallo pulls it off with such effortless style and grace. It's almost like this game willed itself into existence. Definitely pick it up."

- Eddy Webb (Realms of Pugmire, Weird West, World of Darkness MMO)

"Brimming with delicious reality drifting melodrama, Il Fantasma del Giallo takes the good and the bad of the genre and transforms it into an unforgettable TTRPG experience that’s actually built around its source material to make you feel part of it. Its collaborative, free flowing form of storytelling and mystery building will make sure every player feels involved as the drama and conflicts begin to build around them."

- Michael Sweeney (What Haunts Us, The Hawthrone Effect)

"I am so excited for Il Fantasma, it is dripping with chilling atmosphere while exploring the gripping tensions between actors and the roles they play."

- Becky Annison (Bitemarks, Ex Tenebris, Lovecraftesque)

"Like the best Giallo movies, Il Fantasma del Giallo is both grotesquely lurid and whip-smart, both hazily disorienting and incredibly pointed. It’d be worth your time with just its core of murder-mystery movie emulation, but it goes beyond that: a metafictional campaign structure that drags your actors, film by film, into a hazy, nightmarish realm that gleefully violates the line between their self and their performances."

- Minærva McJanda (Voidheart Symphony, Children of Time RPG, Legacy: Life Among the Ruins)

"Il Fantasma del Giallo is helping to paint the vivid yellow pall of the current zeitgeist. Eschewing the corporate office aesthetics and violently disconnective reality television tropes we find in media such as The Backrooms, Battle Royale, or Severance, we are instead treated to something more grubby, more sleazy, more surreal, more real. If you are thinking Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive or Berberian Sound Studio, you are going in the right direction, a direction which crashes your characters into rock bottom and beyond."

- Tanya Floaker (The Thunder Perfect Mind, Mum Chums)

"I’ve never seen a Giallo film and, thanks to Laurence’s diligent work, I don’t think I’ll have to; Il Fantasma del Giallo is clearly a work of mad devotion to the author’s beloved genre, and not only acts as a primer on the movement’s themes and motivations but flings the players overarm into the grimy, washed-out world of 1970’s Italian exploitation cinema."

- Grant Howitt (Spire, Eat the Reich, Honey Heist)

"In this innovative, playing-card-driven, cinematic–thriller TTRPG, Laurence proves himself a strong writer with a crystal-clear sense of purpose. [...] Il Fantasma is the type of modernist TTRPG I love: adventuresome in theme, energetic in mood, high in player agency, and accessible in rules—but never dumbed-down or a mere clone. The game’s mechanics serve the story, and it seems easy enough to tinker with them or bring aspects you like into your own game. I can’t wait to play and enjoy the brutal catharsis of solving a surreal, seedy mystery—or realizing I’ve been the killer the entire time. Prendi questo!

- Wythe Marschall (Stillfleet, Blister Critters)

"This is a bold and brave concept wrapped up in deep and satisfying mechanics. See you in The Yellow!"

- George Bickers (Mappa Mundi, Gallows Corner)

" [It’s] like Robert W. Chambers 'The King In Giallo', an ingenious love letter to the Italian murder mystery that recontextualizes the trappings of the genre into pure nightmare cosmic horror. A gorgeous game made with a deep knowledge and love that I can't wait to play."

- Trevor Henderson (Scarewaves, Siren Head)

"One of the most refreshing TTRPGs I've ever played... wildly creative and made me feel I like was in a Giallo film or a Sam Barlow game."

- Chantal Ryan (darkwebSTREAMER)

Reward Tiers

In addition to the above, there are some special limited edition tiers:

Collector's Edition - A fancy rebound version of Il Fantasma del Giallo,crafted by the masters at Creative Quest. Includes everything from the Director's Cut Bundle. 

Premiere Edition - An ultra fancy rebound version, again crafted by Creative Quest. Includes everything from the Director's Cut Bundle. 

Shot On Location Bundle - Everything in the Collector's Edition, plus you can work with Laurence to create a new set of prompts and fiction for a Real setting, based on your hometown (or any other location, if you so desire.)

Red Carpet Bundle - The same as the Shot On Location Bundle, except you get the Premiere Edition of the game instead!

Meet the Cast - the development team

Laurence Bianchi-Phillips - Writer, Designer, Artist (Illustrations, Layout, Logos)

Laurence has been a working writer and designer in various industries for nearly a decade, with credits in games media, video games, and TTRPGs. Most notably he produced the supplement Primal Pathways for the game Legacy: Life Among the Ruins and contributed a chapter to the sourcebook Strata for Spire. He also worked as a writer and designer on multi-BAFTA award winning video game, Vampire Survivors. 

If you'd like to support the continued work of Laurence and Hardy Roach Games, you can become a member of the Hardy Roach Games Patreon, and get early looks at upcoming projects.

Ed Sibley - Project Manager, Composer

Ed is multidisciplinary games person who releases dungeon synth under the alias Vortigan King. He has a narrative background and a really untidy office. He is the studio head of Whetstone Games, currently developing a synth tycoon indie game called OFFBEAT. 

Stretch Goals

To ensure a minimum of delay and complication, we want to keep this project as simple as possible. There will be no formal collection of stretch goals, other than a commitment to ensure that the initial print run of Il Fantasma del Giallo is produced at as high a quality as is economical, based on the amount raised during this campaign. 

Future print runs of the game may or may not be produced to the same specifications, so to ensure you receive the best possible version of the book, back now!

Shipping

Shipping will be collected after the campaign at the point of fulfilment. Due to only shipping a single book and no other physical products, we should be exempt from any tariffs to the US. Taxes and duties will be charged after the campaign where applicable, and the book will be shipped with the duties paid. 

Please note that due to global shipping instability caused by the war in Iran, shipping costs have been raised considerably, and the situation is still extremely changeable.

Below is an estimate of likely cost ranges. These will likely be revised during the campaign as the shipping situation changes and the results of the Kickstarter firm up specific shipping arrangements. 

Statement on "AI"

No part of this project has been produced by a generative or chatbot "AI" model; everything here is 100% human made. Generative "AI" is a moral, environmental, ethical, political, economic, and philosophical blight on the planet and on all humanity.