This is a short article that I wrote for the Dark Conspiracy 4th edition Kickstarter that never saw publication. It looks to detail, at least from my perspective, why I continue to love, support and create for Dark Conspiracy and why I’m so excited for a new edition!

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Shapes that rip and tear. Shadows that live in corners… Windows in space and time that lead to realms of madness and decay…

And with those words an untold number of gamers were lured into the world of Dark Conspiracy. It was the early 1990s, and for years, roleplayers had played their games across infinite worlds of heroic fantasy, the bounds of airless space or facing the maddening terrors of Lovecraftian horrors, but rarely had they the opportunity to act out their adventures in a setting that reflected so darkly humanity’s own missteps into the future.

Dark Conspiracy is the game of modern, conspiracy horror, set against a backdrop of a bleak future dominated by greed, evil and nightmares from beyond reality. It was a product of its era, the result of a zeitgeist of suspicion and fear – likely driven by a recent stock-market crash, a changing governmental structure and a rapid rise in personal technology – that would spawn not only TV shows like the X Files, Millennium and Dark Skies, but also a plethora of other similarly focused roleplaying games. 

But what made Dark Conspiracy special was its approach to the very world in which it existed – a 1980s that had turned bad; where capitalism caused destruction and despair, alien interference had unleashed pure evil, and no one was brave or strong enough to stand against the horror. That is, except the player-characters – The Minion Hunters – who outnumbered and outgunned took the fight to the streets in what is only ever likely to be a fleeting glimmer of success against overwhelming odds.

Yet even the concept of ‘fighting back’ was couched in ambiguity, as the Minion Hunters were no heroes. Instead, for the most part, they are simply survivors (albeit well-armed ones), forced to push back against the horrors they encountered; driven into a decision of resist or succumb forever. In this they would succeed or die in the attempt, as there is nothing else.

Everything ever released for Dark Conspiracy reinforced these aspects of this milieu, be it through homegrown adventures where the characters hunted the truth in unending urban sprawls, or via one of the few published campaigns which could lead the Minion Hunters to Russia, Outer Space or into other dimensions.

Today, we seem to have gone full circle, with the same underlying tensions having reawakening the mistrust and suspicion in the world; the power of government, the fear of being watched 24/7 by corporations and who-knows-who-else, and the feeling of futility against uncontrolled change. With the upcoming release of the new edition of Dark Conspiracy, everything that made it great also returns, and better than ever. Sure, the setting dates have been moved forward, and the rules decoupled from some of their archaic assumptions of a military-focused House System, but everything else feels the same, if not darker and more terrifying. Under Clockwork Publishing’s leadership, Dark Conspiracy no longer simply encompasses a ‘Dark America’… it is now truly a ‘Dark World’…