I Have the High Ground
A downloadable game
Update: Physical copies of the zine are in stock at IPR, where I Have the High Ground has been a bestseller for the last year! You can also order the premium set, which comes with:
- A 5.5x8.5" 28 page riso-print B&W rulebook zine
- 2 custom d6 dice with crossed rapier 6-face
- 9 printed fiberboard tokens for tracking moves
- A burlap bag for storage
Let’s face it: dueling is sexy.
But do you know what’s sexier than combat? That slower, higher tension duel that occurs before any damage is done—before any blow is even struck. The duel of word and wit, of melodramatic motion and threatening maneuvers. I Have the High Ground is a short, collaborative tabletop roleplaying and storytelling game for 2 players about that kind of duel. It's GM-less and genre-neutral, and takes 1-2 hours to play. You can hear it played on Party of One, The Neon Caster, and Chicks with Dice, read a review in Cannibal Halfling Gaming, or watch this short video by Philippa Mort for an overview of the game!
Using game mechanics inspired by competitive fencing, players choose moves in secret. After their choices are revealed, the winner takes the opportunity to flaunt their bravado or to perform subtle acts that leave an imposing quiet in their wake. Your game is not an action-packed fight to the death but rather a portrayal of the slow, smoldering tension between two people about to risk their pride, their reputation, or even their lives.
I Have the High Ground also encourages players to ask: what exactly is a duel? You might be knights or fencers with your blades crossed for sport or mortal combat. But what if you were hackers vying for control of a contested server? A murderer and the aggrieved loved one avenging their victim? What if you’re assassins and ex-girlfriends, or in a boxing match, or bar fight, or even just a school talent show? So, who will you be? What will you do? There’s only one way to find out.
Pick your weapons, push the limits, and whenever justifiable: flourish your capes.
The Game
Mechanics
I Have the High Ground is a GM-less, mechanically light game meant for one-shot play, with just 24 pages of rules text. It can be played in any genre and even adapted to use characters from an existing campaign—it's a great way to zoom in on a tense, pre-battle scene from a game in another system. Inspired by competitive fencing, each round players choose in secret to thrust, feint, or parry. The moves are arranged in a rock-paper-scissors triangle, where thrust beats feint, feint beats parry, and parry beats thrust, scoring one point for the victor. These moves do not, however, translate to the bloody jabs of a sword. Instead, they help structure the narration that follows: thrusts resolve to vicious insults or imperious gestures, feints into provocative bait that incites opponents into emotional vulnerability, while parries resolve as cunning repartees. When one player reaches 9 points, their opponent is defeated, and the loser is forced—in a shameful outburst of emotion—to use their weapon and strike the blow that begins the ensuing battle!
Storytelling
The mechanical victory provides inspiration and structure for the narration that follows. The rules establish who gets the narrative "last word" and how players negotiate their actions so that the loser gives the victor a satisfying chance to demonstrate their victory. I Have the High Ground is a collaborative game. Players are expected to help each other tell the stories they want to tell, treating losses as an opportunity to show their characters weaknesses and demonstrate their opponent's strengths.
Character and Setting Creation
Players begin with a combination of open-ended prompts and pre-written options designed to ensure that each character develops into a dramatic foil of their opponent. Players establish a history between their characters, whether that be “rivals”, “ex-lovers”, or both, and select narrative advantages—like the “the high ground”, “superior fashion” or “to be your opponent’s exact type.” Which player selects first depends directly on the most important mechanic: the cape rubric. The player with the finest cape chooses the section of character creation in which they will receive first pick.
Contributors
- Jess Levine, the creator and lead game designer, whose previous games includes going rogue.
- Ezra Rose, the illustrator, whose previous work includes illustration for Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum’s Dream Askew / Dream Apart.
- Vin Tanner, the layout artist, whose previous games includes Galactic 2e: The Droid Expansion.
- satah, the game design consultant, who helped create I Have the High Ground's unique Descriptor and Circumstances mechanics, and whose previous games include HOOK LINE & CYB3R.
- Will Jobst, the game's editor, whose previous games includes TORQ and this discord has ghosts in it.
- All the crowdfunder contributors, including Bridget Renoux, Fae, Rhiannon Naomi Daly, riley rethal, and Sarida Pratuangtham.
The following games were especially influential on I Have the High Ground
- Fiasco by Jason Morningstar
- galactic 2e by riley rethal
- it's been a long, long time and it's been a long time coming by riley rethal
You can also hear Jess and satah discuss how playing these games together influenced their design work on I Have the High Ground by listening to their appearance on the Character Creation Cast podcast!
Reviewers & Streamers
If you would like to review I Have the High Ground or use it on your livestream or actual play podcast, reach out via this contact form and we would be happy to provide you with a free copy and the press kit.
Want more?
Physical Copies
If you want to buy a physical zine of the rulebook, there are a limited number for sale for $15 through Indie Press Revolution.
You can also buy a $45 premium set that includes:
- A 5.5x8.5" 28 page riso-print B&W rulebook zine
- 2 custom d6 dice with crossed rapier 6-face
- 9 printed fiberboard tokens for tracking moves
- A burlap bag for storage
Hear it Played
You can hear I Have the High Ground be played:
- By Jess Levine and Jeff Stormer on the Party of One podcast
- By Jess Levine and Ruben Ferdinand, produced by Nathan Blades, on Phantom Arts Entertainment's The Neon Caster livestream
- By Kathleen Hyslop and Erika Rebecca Belsaas on the Chicks with Dice podcast
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Exclusive content
Support this game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copy
If you can't afford to pay for this game, feel free to take a community copy. For every $5 someone pays over the minimum price, this adds a community copy to the pool. If you claim a community copy & play the game, it would be much appreciated & very helpful if you could take the time to leave a star review on itch!
Community Copy Donation
By purchasing at $15, you will add one free community copy to the pool to be claimed by someone who can't afford to purchase the game. Every additional $5 will add another community copy!
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Comments
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Just had a blast playing as two magical girls atop a runaway train dueling for the fate of their city, five stars amazing game
Played as two suburban dads posturing at a cookout, 10/10 very dramatic, highly recommend.
HELLO, PEOPLE OF THE INTERNET.
Us at ComboFans have made a 17 minute long highly-edited and very funny video review for 'I Have The High Ground'. I highly recommend watching it for the perspective of a playtesting, gamerunning, showrunning TTRPG veteran. This video has subtitles.
That all being said: this game rocks.
I've spent a lot of time with IHTHG now, finding amusement in the funny little acronym it lives within, and I have to say this may be one of the more effective 'character vehicle' systems ever devised.
I don't know how to have an uninteresting time with this game. Each motion of the mechanics too effectively guide the player towards making bold and character-building moves that the rival player in turn responds to with MORE interesting reactive motions, based around a deceptively deadsimple game structure - rock paper scissors.
It's easy to pick up and play, and it's easy to get dragged dead down into the ripcurrent of momentum encouraged by the point-based RPS playthrough and the evolving tension it suggests with 'weapons drawn' and 'showboating dickbaggery' motions to interrupt regular gameflow and make sure no sort of stagnancy in response can actually be allowed - the system is too trimmed to some sort of bold perfection in homoerotic tension creation to abide 'boredom' at any point in the short character creation and playthrough process.
I've had that great special kind of success with I Have The High Ground that is the ultimate blessing for TTRPG freaks and Fighting Game freaks alike; I managed to get people who otherwise disregarded the medium to actually give it a try via this.
So, it's at least as fantastic and horny-fascinating as Street Fighter 6, which is probably the highest compliment I can offer.
Highly recommend for all levels of play.
I've read this game and enjoyed it. Here's my reading feedback about it, in french : https://www.gulix.fr/blog/2023/04/19/lectures-de-role-37/
The flow of the game is appealing, with this adaptation of Rock-Paper-Cissors that matches so well the story told. Thanks!
We had a chance to meet with our long-distance partner for the first time, and on our short list of things to do was play some two-player roleplaying games … and this one was such a good choice! The game we just played, we were musketeer-era fencers having an exhibition bout, and so there was the duel of bravado between rivals for the entertainment of the crowd in parallel with the duel of emotions between friends as our character, Father Swords as he was nicknamed, picked up on the increasing signs of anxiety from Raymon Delacroix as he was reminded of the gambling he was doing to try and cover his debts. It was a fantastic Foil-stakes game and we had a ton of fun with it.
(The game ended with a Penalty Move from Father Swords as he lowered his saber, walked up to his friend, and asked, “No, really, are you all right?”)
Necessary disclosure: I was a play-tester for this! I loved it then, and I love it now, and I want you to love it too.
One of the most exciting TTRPGs I've ever indulged in. Modular to a pillar, allowing no end of scenarios within and surrounding one very important core: two people need to fight, very badly, with so much emphasis on the need.
It's a creative wellspring, obviously - and the mechanics are interesting and cohesive towards the story-cause. Rock paper scissors type - feinting, dashing forward to blow, predicting and understanding your opponent further as your violence comes to a dramatic story crescendo and your conflict comes to a close.
I've tried my hand at two instances of this game, and I'll provide these as examples of how you can slice and dice this fun.
#1, THE LIGHT GAME
Suburban superpowers, two wives in unfulfilling relationships, recalling their happier times of long-ago and realizing how much they want to throw it all away and give reckless joy a shot - so they refuse the call, like all scared people do, and duck and weave and duel against one another through this supermarket, en route to buy cheap food items in enormous bulk to secure the most frequent flyer points so they can run away in either direction. Wanna know how their story ends up? Go play it, and go look up David Philips Chocolate Pudding.
#2, DEATH DUEL
A craggy outreach, an utterly soaked vista over infinity in rural Scotland - in a ravaged and wrecked world, where Death has taken material form to take people so much more directly and immediately.
So, obviously, a man with a found family to defend challenges Death himself to a chess game he intends to stall into endlessness. (You may have seen this movie!)
High Grounds leaves room for dialogue, quipping, flourishing and brandishing your Cape a people - a moment of deep and fully legitimate pride, characterization leaving you maximally vulnerable but leaving you, too, maximally distinct and vivid and wonderful.
Sometimes, in these outmatched and uberdesperate duels, being as much yourself as you can is the way to win.
I guess that's my ultimate and final thought. High Ground levels the playing field of fights in fiction to characters thoughtfully and wisely bashing up against each other, with so many modes for tonal direness, utter seriousness, or delightfully goofy levity for gay women bashing swords at each other.
It's an absolute treat. Call this review my 'thrust'!
I fell in love with the concept of this game since my first look at it on the Party of 1 podcast where Jess and Jeff had a go at it.
Duels are a beautiful work of art in fiction. They engage the audience in a bout of back and forth tension, and lead to such interesting character development.
This game is the opportunity for you to fulfill that story yourself, enter that Duel's place in a fictional history as one full of quips and fun hijinks and shenanigans between foes of any ilk. Anywhere from a fun argument between friends to a lethal duel between enemies, this game creates the template for any scenario where 2 people go head to head and the mechanics of Thrust, Parry, and Feint make for a fair and genuinely thrilling experience.
You never know what's going to happen until it does. Find out what happens leading up to your climactic duel, or who wins the argument in a debate on if hot dogs are sandwiches(they aren't). The stakes are yours to set.
This is a great 2 player game with fun ideas and easy mechanics to build tension!
I made a quick look video about it:
Really digging this, slightly prep heavy on character creation for me to see it slipping into another system/game though... maybe that's more a reflection of my bad DM'ing lol
I Have The High Ground creates exciting, dramatic stories, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny and sometimes heart-breaking. Play is tense and involving. Capable of handling a really shocking number of genres and situations, this is one of my favorite games that I've played from the last few years.
This game is absolutely everything. Romance lives at the heart of every interaction—in the Byronic sense of romance, and in the relationship sense—and builds a delightful tension as your wordplay escalates to swordplay.
had one game that was star wars dykes being angsty about who's allowed to be a good girl. and another game about gay exes/ex-roommates at a party one of whose weapon was weaponized callouts. 10/10 goty all year