Hexingtide's Playtest 4 Extended Preview Is Here

The monsters are stirring… and so is the next chapter of Hexingtide.

I’m excited to release Hexingtide’s Playtest 4 Extended Preview: a meaty snapshot of what’s coming in the full Playtest 4 release later this summer. It includes major system refinements, expanded Protagonist creation, and a new approach to what makes this game tick.

👥 Join the Discord: hxti.de/discord
✉️ Signup for Playtesting: hxti.de/signup
💻 Download on Itch: willphillips.itch.io/hexingtide

Wait, I’m New. What’s Hexingtide? 🙋

Hexingtide is my in-development TTRPG of Minimalist Monstrous Roleplaying. It’s a love letter to the monster stories of folklore, comics, and classic pop culture. Inspired by:

• Hellboy & the wider Mignolaverse
• Dan Brereton’s Nocturnals
• Eric Powell’s The Goon & Hillbilly
• Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
• Kevin Grevioux’s Underworld films
• Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher – plus the game adaptations by CD Projekt Red
• classic authors such Shelley, Stoker, Poe, & the Grimm Brothers;
• and the various incarnations of The World of Darkness

They are brand new rules – not a hack nor built off an SRD (nice.gif):

• Rules-light, procedure-heavy, genre-focused, collaborative approach
• Open-ended, player-created Powers, Portents (the looming dangers and temptations of being a monster), and Pacts (representing those ties to humanity)
• Player facing rolls using a single die: your character’s Inhumanity Die – sometimes you want to roll high, other times low

What’s New in the Extended Preview?

The core of the game remains rock solid: the single Inhumanity Die, Powers, Portents, Pacts, Frenzies, and Fugues. This core gameplay has proven to be fun and reliable over the last year of playtesting.

What’s new and improved?

• A refined, cleaner rules structure with better examples and explanations, making the game – and its core mechanics of Power and Portent Checks – easier to run at the table.
• Updated character creation, including more guidance on the game’s open-ended Powers, Portents, and Pacts – including example archetypes and sample “builds” to help players used to more prescriptive systems.
• An updated rock-papers-scissors subsystem of Coteries (five classifications of monster nature or origin which replaces the Chymoi system) along with fleshed out rules that apply to the reactions of mortal humans, Snares, and investigations into the human experience, Shadows.
• Revised XP system that relies on player-defined narrative arcs, along with tools and prompts for designing them.
• First glimpses at GM-facing tools, but more on those soon.

What’s Still to Come?

The Extended Preview is about 75% of the full game, but not the complete Playtest 4 release.

Coming later this summer:

• Full Storyteller (GM) rules and guidance:
  • Rules for running the game’s heavily thematic Scenes
  • Enemy, NPC, and monster creation rules
• Additional pregen Protagonists
• Google Sheets character sheet

Playtest 5 will introduce the Resources chapter, full of worldbuilding prompts, ready-to-use spark tables, monsters, and an introductory adventure. Coming this fall.

Want to Help Shape the Game?

Hexingtide lives and dies by its community, and I’m working on rebuilding just that (and the Discord) after the game’s long layoff.

It’s a small but growing group of fellow weirdos running strange, story-driven games about monsters trying (and often failing) to hold onto something human.

Whether you’re a returning tester or brand new to Hexingtide, now is a great time to jump in, share your thoughts, and help shape what comes next.

Download the Hexingtide Playtest 4 Extended Preview:

👥 Join the Discord: hxti.de/discord
✉️ Signup for Playtesting: hxti.de/signup
💻 Download on Itch: willphillips.itch.io/hexingtide

How to provide playtest feedback:

💬 Fill out the playtest feedback form: hxti.de/feedback
👥 Share it on the Discord: hxti.de/discord

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(This article has been cross-posted to Itch from my tabletop blog: https://tabletop.willphillips.org/2025/07/hexingtides-playtest-4-extended-preview-is-here/ .)