No. The short answer is no. Our existence as a species will go on without the existence of such a thing and so will the tabletop RPG scene.

So why make one? It's a question I've been struggling with for most of the development of this game, and to be fair it's a question I've been asked, and a very fair criticism of the game. This isn't an RPG, it's a social deduction game. It's a longer version of Among Us or Secret Hitler.

We're living in a world of entertainment where social deduction is gaining an enormous following. Popular twitch streamers are playing Among Us together. You see the Smosh team gathering around to play Blood on the Clock Tower and Secret Hitler on Youtube and One Night Werewolf engages game night goers the world over.  Personally it's great fun to consume and even more fun to participate. What's fun about these games is their ability to generate drama without (in most cases at least) breaking friendships and destroying families.

While creating this game, I sought not to fix the social deduction formula, but to create something that takes it somewhere different. What if we had more development around these characters, what if before the big betrayal or the death, we had several scenes setting it all up. Death and betrayal in stories has always felt like the popping of a balloon. What if we increased the size and inflation time? What if we really built up to it? What if the entire experience was played out like a movie and we increased the tension so much that the shock of what we all know is coming hits like an explosion.

Pushing it even further, what if this wasn't just a lying game? We see it often in most games where players interrogate each other over who seems more 'sus' and often the result is incredibly arbitrary. The tabletop scene is full of lying games. What if instead, we made the game about deceptive storytelling? The sort that writers like George R.R. Martin use to keep readers and viewers at the edge of their seats, eyes open for clues on which of the main characters is going to die next; red flags, death flags, fake-outs and abrupt ends to story arcs we thought would go on for a couple more books. In this game, one player has a secret, and it's that their character is going to die at the end. How well will they be able to hit all their story goals (called milestones in this game), setting up their character for death, without giving away the secret? It's more than just saying "No, I'm not the one you're looking for." it's hiding little clues in the character's story and later revealing it all for everyone to go "Oh, why didn't I spot that..".

There is a traitor in this game too, but there is no reward for figuring them out. If you've figured out who they are, the only advantage is you've ruled out that this player isn't marked for death. The traitor's goal is only to kill the mark and end their story arc before it can be finished so the mark needs to be very careful. The traitor's role in a story is to betray, not to be caught, so while the traitor mechanic exists, One of Us Will Die isn't a lying game.

I've had a lot of people agree or disagree with the idea that One of Us Will Die is a social deduction game. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. Some people have refused to even call it a game. What it is though is an RPG where the players keep secrets from each other, where the role you play isn't just an adventurer on a quest, but also a writer attempting to tell a thrilling story with a twist at the end.

Games last around three hours and everyone only gets one chance per game. Make it matter. Make it count. After all, you only ever die once.