# The Mountain Witch tags: #game/rpg/the-mountain-witch ![[The Mountain Witch (cover).jpg|600]] **The Mountain Witch** is a self-contained RPG adventure by Timothy Kleinert — a landmark of the indie RPG movement that began life as a Game Chef contest entry in 2004 and has been lovingly revised by Central Michigan University Press. It's a game with a single scenario and no apologies: a band of masterless ronin, outcast and unemployed, accept the deal no one else would take, to climb Mt. Fuji and kill O-Yanma, the Mountain Witch himself. The twist is that the Witch is mostly a McGuffin; the real drama is the mounting tension between a group of strangers who are all hiding something and can't trust each other an inch. The core resolution is elegantly simple: every Conflict — and in this game, *all* conflict is combat, mental or physical — is settled by each side rolling **1d6 per character**, with the highest roll winning and the margin of success deciding how much the winner gets to narrate. The winner narrates the outcome retroactively, which is the hobby's way of saying the dice decide who holds the pen, not what the pen writes. Characters are competent by default; a roll only happens when there's active opposition or real cost to failure. The heart of the game is **Trust**. Between chapters, players secretly rate how much their ronin trusts each of the others, awarding Trust points accordingly. Those points are spent mid-Conflict to **Aid** a fellow ronin (adding your die to theirs), to **Betray** them (gaining a +1 bonus against them and locking them out of spending Trust), or to **Buy narration rights** and hijack the outcome of their roll. It's a bluff-and-bet mechanic that makes player-versus-player tension tangible, and it's the only way to improve your odds — so every success is a small vote of confidence, and every betrayal cuts deep. Each ronin is also dealt a secret **Dark Fate** — revenge, an unholy pact with the Witch, a past allegiance, a worst fear — that they hint at through play and finally reveal in the closing acts. Guided by their Zodiac and abilities, the ronin journey up the mountain, battle the Witch's minions, and guard their secrets until the tension finally breaks. It's a tragedy dressed as a samurai film, and it plays best with a table willing to lean into the knife-edge of not knowing who's going to sell whom out. ## References - [The Mountain Witch - Central Michigan University Press](https://cmichpress.com/product/the-mountain-witch/) - [The Mountain Witch preorder (PDF & hardcover) - BackerKit](https://art-system.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/803569) - [Review: The Mountain Witch - Realms](https://realms.co.uk/blog/articles/review-the-mountain-witch/)