If you ever played Dungeons & Dragons and thought \u201cthis game needs more black metal,\u201d then you should probably check out M\u00f6rk Borg, the apocalyptic fantasy RPG created by Pelle Nilsson and Johan Nohr in 2018, which quickly became an indie sensation. I\u2019ve owned the main M\u00f6rk Borg book for a while now but haven\u2019t had a chance to play it until now. I recently sat down as a player at a local TTRPG meetup, joining a table playing Dukk B\u00f6rg, a spin-off of the game set in a dark and twisted version of the DuckTales<\/em> universe. Yup, M\u00f6rk Borg is weird like that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The game\u2019s Third Party License allows fans to create and publish their material based on the M\u00f6rk Borg system (but it\u2019s hard to use this word to describe such a simplified set of rules), and the good people at Gem Room Games decided to use that freedom to please the segment of the TTRPG fandom that both loves M\u00f6rk Borg\u2019s doom metal vibes and at the same time fondly remembers sitting in front of the TV to watch the ludicrous adventures of Scrooge McDuck and his family. That segment is bigger than you might think.<\/p>\n Despite embracing the silliness of DuckTales<\/em>, Dukk B\u00f6rg does not forget its roots. Like in the original game, characters are not created to last. M\u00f6rk Borg and its many clones stand out because the gameplay experience is fast and unforgiving: You\u2019re not playing mighty heroes blessed with supernatural prowess, but desperate survivors in a dying world. Which translates to: Don\u2019t get too attached to your character, because chances are you\u2019re going to be rolling a new one soon. I experienced this firsthand during that Dukk B\u00f6rg game, and it changed the way I look at character death in D&D too. This game is not ducking around.<\/p>\n We played the starter adventure “The Aeonian Citadel,” which sees your gang of human-duck hybrids infiltrating the mysterious fortress where Skruj (this world\u2019s version of Scrooge) resides. The whole romp is a funny satire of corporate greed, with Skruj using money to fuel his dark magic, and a horde of corporate duck drones caught in this horrific machine. To beat Skruj, you need to first attack his money by finding three weaknesses (one being Steamboat Willie, trapped in a vault because his IP has expired). My group fared surprisingly well \u2014 not least because I beat one of Skruj\u2019s nephews half to death and dragged him along as a hostage \u2014 until we realized that we missed important things in the lower levels of the citadel. At the top, we were staring down into the abyss that held Skruj\u2019s mountain of gold at the bottom. As we had just stolen a set of \u201cgolden parachutes\u201d meant for the company\u2019s executives, I thought we could simply jump down and glide to the bottom. The game master asked me to roll, and I had a good stat for this, but I still failed. No sweat, I could use one of my Omen points for a reroll\u2026and I rolled a one. <\/p>\n In M\u00f6rk Borg, Omen points are a resource characters can use to get a reroll, decrease damage suffered, or lower the difficulty of a check.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n In the next scene, three humanoid ducks lay splattered over a mountain of gold, and three players were rolling for new characters. However, this didn\u2019t ruin the session at all. We just made up a quick, ridiculous introduction for the new team and picked up exactly where we left off. In this type of game, the main goal is to get to the end \u2014 of the adventure, and sometimes of the world itself. One of the most interesting mechanics in M\u00f6rk Borg is a \u201cdoomsday clock\u201d that can move forward at the start of each day. On a roll of one on a pre-determined die, a \u201cmisery\u201d occurs. When this happens for the seventh time, the world ends, likely catastrophically and painfully.<\/p>\n This gives the game a sense of finality that applies to the characters too. It takes ten minutes to make one, and everything is randomly determined with rolls. It\u2019s the opposite of Dungeons & Dragons, where players build their characters carefully, thinking of synergies, class options, play styles, and so on. In D&D, you understandably grow attached to your characters through role-playing and story development. The death of a character is a big deal, or at least it should be. As a DM who loves focusing on story and encourages character development, I tend to shy away from killing characters. I admit that I\u2019m guilty of skewing rolls in the players\u2019 favor when things look too dire, or at least I always give them a way to avoid death. But long before I looked at M\u00f6rk Borg, I had been wondering if this was the right approach.<\/p>\n The rise of the Old School Renaissance in TTRPGs (a movement that looks back at the early days of the genre to recover \u201cold school\u201d mechanics and play styles) made this debate quite relevant. Games like M\u00f6rk Borg, Dungeon Crawl Classics, or Shadowdark make character death a much more common occurrence, while DMs who keep playing and enjoying first edition AD&D boast of how ruthless their games are. Meanwhile, D&D 5e and its 5.5 expansion give downed characters three death saving throw rolls, on top of an abundance of healing spells and abilities, plus easy access to resurrection.<\/p>\n In D&D 5.5, many spells can bring characters back from death with little to no cost. The level three spell Revivify requires a diamond worth 300 gold pieces, while level five\u2019s Raise Dead requires a similar gem worth 500 gold.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n So, who\u2019s got it right? In my opinion, it all boils down to stakes. The shadow of death in an RPG makes players feel<\/em> more about their characters and what\u2019s happening to them. This can bolster both gameplay and storytelling, and unfortunately, current D&D rules work against this, or at least they require the DM to put in some extra effort to keep the players on their toes. However, the indie games mentioned above don\u2019t necessarily nail the solution either. When characters are extremely disposable, it\u2019s hard for a player to think of them as anything more than a set of stats on a piece of paper. \u201cDon\u2019t get too attached\u201d is not exactly the best recipe for immersion.<\/p>\n Overall, I tend to have a syncretic approach to TTRPGs. I mix and match the elements I like, often modifying them to suit the needs of the moment and, more importantly, learning general lessons that can be applied in any context. I had fun playing Dukk B\u00f6rg and toppling Skruj\u2019s capitalistic nightmare after plummeting to death in the same session, but I also didn\u2019t like not caring at all about my character. Going back to my main D&D game, I will be more ruthless with my players and no longer think of character death as something to avoid at all costs. Now, I have to come up with a coherent in-world reason why diamonds don\u2019t exist in my campaign. Maybe a greedy humanoid duck monster has been hoarding them all in a vault\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"DUKK](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dukk-borg-the-devotee-art.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
\n <\/picture>Image: Gem Room Games\/Nerdy Paper Games<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"DUKK](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dukk-borg-map-of-dukk-borg-page-spread.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
\n <\/picture>Image: Gem Room Games\/Nerdy Paper Games<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-10-1.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
\n <\/picture>Image: Wizards of the Coast<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n