Ethan Yen's
Chain×Link:
A Semi-Cooperative Dungeon-Defying RPG
 |
| The cover of my copy of Chain×Link. |
Introduction
Chain×Link (pronounced as chainlink) is a zine by Ethan Yen with art by Tony Tran with additional art and layout by Andrew Beauman. Chain×Link is a game about rebel leaders that have been captured, chained together, and condemned to hard labor in the depths of a vast mega-dungeon, by an impersonal and distant tyrannical monarchy. It is a game wherein the players are forced to work together in order to achieve common goals, while at the same time still struggling for political power in the world above against each other. It is a game whose core mechanics are straightforward and approachable, yet still innovative and unique. Moreover, it is a game that sets itself apart from its old school revival (OSR) and mega-dungeon competitors by its unconventional, but compelling, approach to art and graphic design. It was this combination of unorthodox art and the evocative tagline, "A semi-cooperative dungeon-defying RPG" that drew me initially to the game. It would be the mechanics, and narrative potential it offered, that made me want to play it.
In addition to all of the above, Chain×Link is also an excellent example of the kind of 'Adventure' zines that Plus One Exp is publishing through its RPG Zine Club subscription. Furthermore, it is of outstanding quality, going so far as to have been nominated for multiple categories in the 2025 IGDN Indie Groundbreaker Awards: Most Innovative; Game of the Year; Best Graphic Design. That it did not win speaks to the equally high quality of the other nominees and what must have been an extremely competitive award process.
Chains and links form a strong thematic throughline within Chain×Link, making their mark on the art and rules in a way that is consistent and well done. They are a predominant feature of the art, with a chain of some sort showing up on every page. Moreover, the idea of cooperatively chaining contributions together in order to achieve a goal is the core mechanic of the game. It's how this mechanism is implemented that enforces the need for cooperation while also giving it a competitive edge. These rules and mechanics are deeply innovative, introducing multiple concepts I have never seen before, and are pieced together elegantly and brilliantly.
The art, layout, and graphic design are all phenomenal, working together with the text to create an evocative sketch of a world for GMs and players to flesh out through character creation and play. World building is masterfully done across the entire zine with elements spread throughout the rules, character options, and in the quick start adventure. This introductory adventure serves multiple purposes; it further expands the world building and implied narrative, while also establishing quickly what each level of the dungeon should entail from a GM preparation point of view.
Character Options and Ruleset
Ruleset
The back of the zine states that, "Chain×Link uses minimal but evocative rules". This is very true! The rules while 'minimal' do not adhere to traditional notions of OSR or DND rules design, and as such take some explanation to understand. Thankfully, the wonderful flow charts found in the book make learning the rules much easier. Fundamentally, these rules are built around cooperation but have a distinct competitive element to them. They include an explicit win condition - any player who can get their faction to three completed goals, via the Faction Trial mechanics, wins the game as their faction begins a revolution against The Crown. Trials within the dungeon (aka The Grave) are Grave Trials and a leader of the party or 'Chain' can initiate a Faction trial in order to advance their faction goals towards achieving victory. Faction trials represent a fascinating opportunity for players to play out inter-factional politics, coalition building, and develop the wider world in more depth
Foundationally, trials are about building dice pools of D10s and using them to contribute to collaborative - or competitive - efforts that form the narrative backbone of the trials systems. Assembling the pools is straightforward; assets (items and experiences), and skills can all be used to add dice to the pool, and the GM can subtract dice from the pool based on the difficulty of the trial. To gain the benefit of an asset in a trial a player must stress or sever one of the links in the chain in addition to integrating a key word from the item into the narrative of the trial in a satisfying manner. Once the pool is assembled the player rolls it and picks which dice they want to add to the total. There is a great deal of tactical decision making involved in which die to add, as the next player contributing must add a higher number than the one added previously. This means it is progressively harder for players later in the chain to contribute. An additional wrinkle is that the last player to successfully contribute to the chain of contributions assumes leadership of the Chain. Once the trial concludes the new party / Chain leader distributes rewards and consequences are applied to the players or group. Also if narratively appropriate the leader of the chain can smuggle an asset out to their faction.
A further strategic element in the trials system is that each of the PC Breakers has an 'opportunity die'. This die starts at one and each time they do not use their highest roll during a Grave Trial to contribute, the player increases it by one to a maximum of ten. This die can be used during the player's contribution to "seize the opportunity" and replace one of their rolled die with the opportunity die (pg 22). Effectively, this allows a player to potentially upend a trial and seize the leadership spot. I personally think this is a great mechanic that adds a competitive element to the otherwise cooperative Grave trials and opens the way for a great deal of potential politicking and backstabbing.
The asset and dice pool systems bear a passing resemblance to Felix Isaacs' Wildsea's dice pool mechanics, and its tracks systems. The dice pool system also clearly draws inspiration from Rowan, Rook, and Decard's masterpiece Spire and the Resistance Engine. This makes a lot of sense given that Yen lists both Wildsea and Spire as explicit inspirations on the title page of Chain×Link. Regardless, of what systems inspired Yen, I find the trial system to be both interesting mechanically and narratively robust. So much so that I think it would be an excellent system for hacking into other settings and games. Yen must think so too, to the point that he is currently running a Chain×Link game development jam until October 4th 2026.
Personally speaking, I am unsure of how my home gaming group would handle the semi-cooperative nature of the game, as it is not the sort of thing we have ever really done before. I think semi-cooperative TTRPGs might require a group bought fully into that concept for it to be enjoyable. To some degree semi-cooperative seems like it might have a higher potential to generate 'feel bad moments' or require careful management by a GM especially if being run with a group new to the idea. To his credit, Yen does address this stating, "...all the players win in a semi-cooperative roleplaying game as long as everyone enjoys the experience" (pg 6). So if you plan on running Chain×Link it might be a good idea to reiterate to the table that while the game is semi-cooperative it is not competitive in the same way as poker.
Character Creation and Options
 |
| The art for the 'The Defector' Repute. Used with permission of Glyphtide Games. |
Character creation is an exercise in collaborative world building in addition to being a fairly simple process over all. First a player selects one of four reputes for their PC or 'Breaker': 'The Crooked', 'The Defector', 'The Dissident', or 'The Heretic'. This represents their background and defines the actual crime for which they were convicted. They next chose one of four competing factions: 'Orizite Freedom Militia', 'Pricebrokers', 'Veranists', or 'Wyrmcallers'. Each PC Breaker was once a powerful leader in the highest tiers of their chosen faction. Finally players add additional details to their character sheets like name and description.
Each repute is an interesting mixture of origin and class as it determines the characters starting skills, starting equipment, the crime which the character has been convicted of, and a choice of 'repute ability'. The collaborative world building is in how these elements of the character are determined. Each element is posed as a question to the player and multiple options, each with a short prompt, are given. For example, my favorite repute, 'The Heretic', could potentially be convicted of one of three crimes: "Tempest Worship", "Depict angel", or "Speak with Dead" (pg 42). With each of the individual crimes supplying three unique skills related to the crime. "Tempest worship" assigns the skills of "thunder, storm, direct" to the character. These are not defined further in any way whatsoever leaving interpretation up to the GM and player in the heat of play. This is explicitly the point and encouraged by Chain×Link "Breakers twist and bend the definition and context of these skills to maximum benefit in pursuit of their goals" (pg 10). In practice being able to associate a skill to the narrative within a trial in a meaningful manner allows for an extra die to be added to the dice pool for a player's contribution roll. Unlike equipment or experiences, utilizing a skill in this manner does not stress or sever a link, as skills simply do not have links.
Factions provide the narrative basis for what a PC Breaker is struggling to achieve. Each provides a list of goals that need to be achieved through Faction Trials in order to ignite bloody revolution and win the game. For example, my favorite faction, 'Wrymcallers', must "Dispel the celestial barrier" along with two other objectives to successfully usher in the return of their dragon god (pg 50). Each faction starts with three assets, and also provides the PC Breaker with an additional experience based around why they joined the faction in the first place. They also provide a powerful ability that is only active when the player associated with the faction is the leader of the Chain.
I found the character creation process to be intuitive and easy to follow. I liked that a great deal of the game's world building is integrated directly into this process. I think that doing so is an excellent way of encouraging and even mandating a collaborative world building component to the game. Moreover, given the way the character creation process flows and its relative straightforwardness, it appears to be very easy for a GM to work with players to generate custom reputes or factions based on the shared fiction that the table generates.
Art, Layout, Themes, and World Building
Art, and Layout
 |
| Used with permission of Glyphtide Games. |
Tony Tran and Andrew Beauman's work on Chain×Link is in short - outstanding. The style that predominates throughout the zine is abstract and rough, making use of a limited palate of grays, whites, blacks and shades of imperial purple. A good example of the overall style that permeates the zine can be found above. It is abstract and the unnamed monsters and PC breakers are inverted white / black from one another in a intriguing manner. It is in some ways an iconoclastic style, in that it challenges traditional TTRPG art design choices often associated with OSR or mega-dungeon games. Some of the smaller rougher figures composed of black brush strokes found outside of the larger pieces in the zine reminded me of the cave paintings at Lascaux, France. Even the inverted color monsters in piece above bear some resemblance to the abstract outlines of ungulates found in the caves. I think the level of abstraction is similar in some ways.
The layout work done by Beauman is excellent, with the text easy to read and the surrounding art assets integrated very well into the overall product. It is clear from examining the zine that a great deal of care and intention went into the artistic design as well as the rules.
I recently conducted an interview with creator of Chain×Link Ethan Yen, and one of the questions I asked was about his artistic goals for Chain×Link. In the interview Yen describes the overarching goal of the zine, artistically, was for Chain×Link as, "...to separate itself visually from many dark fantasy dungeon-crawling games in the TTRPG space" and that "...I wanted the art style to reminiscent of the genre through a limited color palette and rough lines, but distinct enough in style to make it clear that this game is not the same." I would argue, strongly, that Yen, Tran, and Beauman succeed at this goal wonderfully: the reason I originally picked up Chain×Link was due to the evocative cover art and the unique tag line. Clearly, the TTRPG community agreed with my purchasing choices, as evidenced by Chain×Link's nomination for Best Graphic Design in the 2025 IGDN Ground Breaker Awards.
Themes
There are thematic elements of struggle, power, cooperation and competition mixed throughout the zine. The struggle element is best exemplified by the art of the back cover (pictured below) of a scarred arm pulling itself up by its own instrument of imprisonment. This image immediately communicates that this is game where you will struggle against your situation. Themes of power, cooperation, and competition are integrated into the game throughout. All three are explored effectively through the trial system, the opportunity die, and chain leadership mechanics. Although it is not explored much in the zine, I foresee player groups forming coalitions between their factions in competition with each other in interesting ways that would further explore these themes. The potential for politicking reminds me in some ways of a especially underhanded game of Diplomacy I once witnessed. All of this is enabled by the Chain×Link system.
 |
| The back cover of my copy of Chain×Link. |
World Building
World building is sprinkled liberally throughout the zine; with the most overt occurring on the first two pages of the zine. The first page establishes the history of the mega-dungeon and the mythical origin of the mineral the PCs are condemned to mine. The second page establishes why the PCs are condemned to a chain gang and the nature of their sentence, while also establishing the brutal nature of their oppressors. It's a pretty impressive amount of world building output for what is essentially a poem and three very short paragraphs.
The rest of the world building is sprinkled throughout the rules, character options, and quick start adventure in a satisfying manner that makes you want to explore the implied world more. For example, one of the factions a PC can chose is the "Pricebrokers" whose goal is: "The Church of Evom believes everything has a price. Prove them wrong" (pg 46). We get a little more about the nature of the Church of Evom from the description of "The Heretic" repute, "Rather than giving tribute to Evom, God of Commerce and Production, you find meaning in one of the Old Gods..." (pg 42). These two short sentences imply a great deal about the state of the world and the nature of its religions. For me they evoke an image of a powerful state sponsored religion that ruthlessly hunts down heretics and those it deems lazy and unproductive. The implied socialist struggle against a capitalistic religion is one well worth exploring further.
The remainder of the world building across the zine is is integrated into the text in a similar manner throughout; it is elegant and well done, evoking powerful images at the same time the rules and core concepts are explored. How the world building is integrated into Chain×Link is perhaps my favorite aspect of the zine.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Chain×Link is a long zine at 64 pages, but even for that length it packs a tremendous amount of material into the page count. This includes an example level of the dungeon that is in many ways a covert means of teaching adventure design for the Chain×Link system. Which is, of course, the point. The art is phenomenal, widespread, and unorthodox for its chosen genre. The focus on collaborative world building within a predefined framework is excellent and one of my favorite aspects of the game. Finally, the mechanics integrate cooperation and competition in a very appealing push-pull manner. This mechanical basis for political positioning and struggle creates fertile ground for additional collaborative world building and narrative development.
I strongly recommend Chain×Link to anyone looking for a unique dungeon crawling TTRPG. Despite my reservations about semi-cooperative games with my home group, I plan on trying to run this for them sometime in the fall, as I think the system and the collaborative world building elements are worth exploring.
I also encourage people to try their hand at the Chain×Link game development jam currently going on, as I think the underlying system is highly extensible. Yen has helpfully released the core engine as an SRD which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). So if you are someone who, like me, has some ideas for collaborative games but is just starting out with rules design you would be hard pressed to find a better system to hack.
No comments:
Post a Comment