My Body is a Cage is a “Persona-esque” tabletop RPG about mind dungeons and mundane tasks

Complete everyday chores and interact with ordinary people by day, and explore dangerous dungeons by night, in the upcoming RPG My Body is a Cage.

A roleplaying game that has players experiencing a slice-of-life story during the daylight hours and a dungeon-crawling adventure after dark, My Body is a Cage is about the balance of the real world and dreams. Players will roll two d6s to perform regular tasks and activities in the waking world, such as doing their job or getting good grades, and diving into the labyrinth pathways of a dungeon when they fall asleep.

When players are exploring the dream dungeon, they’ll need to avoid its various traps using their two d6s, but will be rewarded by treasure if they search deep enough - which they can then use in the real world to make their lives easier. The two worlds of My Body is a Cage feed into one another, with the players’ advancement through one aiding their progress in another.

At the beginning of their RPG playthrough, players can choose a bingo card that decides their archetype and class, alongside a collection of tasks they need to do during the day - such as jobs to perform or relationships to develop. Should players manage to complete the tasks listed on their bingo cards, then they’ll gain dice that they can either use to improve their chances in the future or turn in at the end of their session to level their character up. The player’s bingo cards also contain a “genre” that serves as a concentrated form of their character’s personality, which can then be used to double their dice when they want to achieve something connected to their genre.

During the night-time hours, players will be venturing into “Persona-esque” dungeons - such as those seen in the JRPG video game series - that can be found within the minds of the player character’s friends, family and even enemies. When the player character falls asleep in My Body is a Cage, they break into these mind-dungeons to navigate around their various traps - which are inspired by what the player character knows about them in real life - in order to find treasure and help them out, which comes back to benefit the player character in real life too.

My Body is a Cage was created and is being published by Batts, the designer behind the anime and MMORPG-inspired RPG .dungeon, as well as the fantasy roleplaying game Blackbirds - that has players controlling characters whose stats are made up of the voices inside their heads - and an unofficial Pokémon Dungeon Crawler tabletop game based on the popular video game series.

The Kickstarter for My Body is a Cage is live until 2021, with a pledge of $40 (£29) getting backers a copy of the core rulebook in hardback form sometime this December. Alternatively, backers can get the digital PDF version of the game for $20 (£15), with a Hardship Kickstarter tier for players who cannot afford the standard price.