Exile wants you to share your teenage angst amidst monster fighting

How do you navigate a ghastly and unforgiving underworld as a banished, teenage exile — one who has been condemned to certain death? More than just wielding flails and bashing skulls, Exile is suggesting a more pensive outlet for your angst: talking about your feelings, discussing your camaraderie with new-found friends, and contemplating mistrust and betrayals aloud. Ema Acosta, the designer behind the tabletop RPG, believes Exile plays a little differently from typical RPGs that are rooted in dark fantasy, as the core of the experience is about how its situations make you feel. “Feeling is always what grounds the experience with a layer of emotional depth and vulnerability,” she said in an email to Rascal. “At least that’s how we like to play the game at home; it seems we’re always spending as much time interrogating what’s happening in the characters’ psyches as we do outside them.” 

A few quirks point to Exile’s focus on the emotional, rather than pure brawn and bravado. Instead of gaining experiences in Exile, you shed Tears to grow stronger; you accumulate Gloom if you perish too frequently; and you earn Redemption when you grow closer to another exile (and more). You can also trade Tears you’ve earned by weeping at camp, allowing you to exchange your sorrow for boons, such as trinkets or health points. “Ultimately the question is: once one’s exile has fully changed, once their inner self has slowly emerged out of the shadows, will they still be recognizable to their player?” Acosta said. She explained that Exile isn’t just about failures and successes from journeying, but about “the cost at which their victories will come”.