The Vatican Stole the Menorah and We're Going to Steal it Back

We all know it’s true. After the fall of Rome—the very same Rome that destroyed the Second Temple and carted off the massive seven-armed menorah—the temple menorah didn’t really disappear. It passed from empire to empire until finally landing in the ultimate megadungeon: the Vatican Secret Archives, an eighty-five kilometer multi-layer bunker under Vatican City. They stole the menorah.

You’re going to steal it back.

TVSTMAWGTSIB is a silly, dreidel-powered, trifold pamphlet heist TTRPG about reclaiming the Temple menorah from the Vatican. It can be played in 1-2 hours with anywhere from 2 to too many people, a few dreidels (or d4s), eight candles (or eight of anything), and faith (or equally Jewish skepticism) in The Almighty One. It has a rotating dreidelmensch (or "DM") where players take turns setting up problems and working to overcome them during each  "night" of play. It's built for one-shot play with no prep required. See the screenshots for some sample mechanics.

 

Testimonials

This game served as a perfect Hanukkah treat for my polycule. The resolution system here is intuitive but unique, and ties well into the themes it playfully explores. For an hour and change, we stopped complaining about the annoying noise our bathroom fan makes and had some weird, irreverent Jewish fun.
— Darling Demon Eclipse, designer of Sapphicworld and Biotrophication

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Remember that this game is a trifold—read the rightmost panel of page 1 of the PDF first, then proceed to page 2 of the PDF. The other panels you see on page 1 of the PDF are the back!