Grand Guignol gives us crooked alleys and foggy squares, charged touches and words left unsaid, lavish parties and faceless crowds, bloody hands and dangerous smiles, and always the darkness without and within asking ‘What lurks in the secret corners of your heart?’.
In Grand Guignol we play as citizens of London in all its sprawling late-Victorian glory. Crowds pour in from the countryside as the Industrial Revolution shreds their livelihoods, while the factories bring nature and time themselves under imperial control. Predators consort with the powerful and prey upon the poor, while ancient powers stir and fell voices whisper temptation from the shadows.
Amongst it all we monsters and queers hold each other close, slay our demons, and live our lives. We flirt and feud, tremble and embrace, and hurt and heal one another as we cling together in the margins of this hostile world.
Our lives are shadow and mist—beautiful and ephemeral, impossible to tame. What secret histories might we write in dark streets where the gaslights don’t reach, in those corners of our tender hearts that neither God nor science has caged?
Grand Guignol is a game for 3-5 players that can be played for 1 session or for 12. It uses the Belonging Outside Belonging system, invented by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum for their paired games Dream Askew & Dream Apart.
This system is a diceless, GMless engine. Characters take flawed or vulnerable action that highlights their struggle with society's inhibiting expectations, and are rewarded with tokens that fuel transformative, transgressive action where the characters embrace compassion, courage, defiance, or insight. They also gain tokens by playing into other character's lures, thematic interactions that centre each archetype's strengths and troubles. Players also control setting elements, portraying grand forces of London (capitalism, modernity, monstrosity, the massed population) that push and pull on the character's lives and choosing when to bring them forward and how they act upon the story.
In Grand Guignol, each player chooses a Gothic archetype to play, such as the haunted Gate, the scandalous Patron, or the maverick Scholar. Together you'll discover your own vision of London—revealing its hidden queer enclaves, uncovering the dark forces that loom over it, exploring the troubled lives of its citizens, and chronicling the occasions that may bring your characters together or drive them apart.
What secret histories will you write on dark streets where the gaslights don't reach, in those corners of your tender hearts that neither God nor science has caged?
Softcover
Written by Luke Jordan 2025. Cover by Ver. Layout by Ruby Lavin.