Carnevale

What is Carnevale

Carnevale is a narrative skirmish game from TTCombat, set in Venice in 1795. Two years earlier the Rent in the Sky tore reality open, sank most of Europe under the waves, and left Venice as the one city standing. By day it trades and prospers. By night everyone puts on a mask and the canals run red.

Each player runs a gang of around ten characters. The city is the point of the game: canals, rooftops, bridges, and gondolas are all in play, and your characters climb, jump, swim, and fight their way across them. You win as often by shoving someone off a roof or holding them under the water as by hitting them with a sword.

The game was first created by David Esbri and published by Vesper-on Games, and that version was nominated at the Origins Awards for best miniatures rules of 2012. TTCombat took the game back to its core and ran a Kickstarter for a new edition in 2017, with new rules, new models, and a two-player starter box. The new edition launched in November 2018. TTCombat says the rules shifted from “a rules-heavy almost RPG into a streamlined narrative action game.” The big rulebook is written by Gav Thorpe and Lewis Clarke, and Goonhammer named Clarke as the game’s lead developer in 2020.

It’s still going. TTCombat was putting out new characters and taking pre-orders for more in 2026.

The factions

There are seven gangs, each with free stat cards on the resources page:

The Guild. A secret society of thieves and spies that grew out of the shipwrights and dockworkers. They protect the city’s shopkeepers and gondoliers, for a price.
Rashaar. Creatures that came through the Rent, hiding behind the charitable front of the Church of Dagon.
The Patricians. Venice’s ruling class, whose masked parties spill out into the streets as murder.
The Doctors. Researchers on the island of San Servolo who help the sick by day and experiment on them by night.
The Vatican. The forces of a new Pope, waging a holy war on Venice.
Strigoi. Vlad Dracula and the vampires he makes with the blood kiss.
The Gifted. People the Rent gave magic to, working as mercenaries for other gangs or as a small gang of their own.

How it plays

Character turns, one at a time. Each round, players take turns activating a single character, starting with whoever wins initiative. Initiative is rolled off your leader’s remaining Command Points.
d10s and Aces. Every roll uses ten-sided dice, and a success is called an Ace, usually a 7 or better. One die in every roll is the Destiny Dice, which decides whether the roll is a Critical or a Fumble.
Five stats. Characters have MOVE, DEXTERITY, ATTACK, PROTECTION, and MIND. ATTACK covers both melee and shooting, and your DEXTERITY is the number an attacker needs to roll to hit you.
Three kinds of points. Action Points pay for actions, and nobody spends more than 3 in a round. Will Points add dice to a roll or pay for spells, and they don’t come back unless something replenishes them. Command Points let leaders hand out extra actions, act out of sequence, swap Agendas, or use Command Abilities.
Movement is the game. Run/Climb, Jump, Dive, Hide, and Guard are all actions. Jumps can chain off obstacles and gondolas, falls cost Life Points by the inch, and a Controlled Landing makes the fall hurt less.
Grapple and Drown. Grapple moves an enemy, off a ledge or into the canal if you like. Drown works on someone in the water, and armour doesn’t help against it.
Magic. Mages cast from one of five Disciplines: Divinity, Blood Rites, Fateweaving, Runes of Sovereignty, and Wild Magic. Enemy mages can try to Dispel.
Fortune’s Favour. Pull off something dashing and your opponent can award you Fortune’s Favour, which gives Will Points back. It then passes from player to player through the game.
Scenarios and Agendas. Every game is a scenario with a primary objective, plus Agendas, small secondary goals worth extra Victory Points. You build your gang with Ducats around a single Leader.

The rules suggest a table that’s a third water, a third ground, and a third buildings, with plenty of climbable walls and no more than 6 to 8 inches of wall without somewhere to stand.

How to start

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Carnevale Rulebook (free PDF)

The full 48-page rules, with scenarios, straight from TTCombat.

Read the rules for free. The 48-page rulebook is a free download from the Carnevale resources page, along with the FAQ, the quick reference sheet, magic, Agendas, faction scenarios, and stat cards for every gang. TTCombat sells it in print as the Small Rulebook for $16.
Build a gang online. The free gang builder linked from the resources page has the character cards and faction abilities in it.
Get a two-player starter. Escape From San Canciano ($63) pits the Guild against the Rashaar with 8 resin characters, the 48-page rulebook and a campaign, cardboard buildings and obstacles, a bridge, a gondola, a 2’ × 2’ mat, dice, and quick reference cards. World’s Faire Afterparty ($71) does the same for the Patricians and the Doctors, with 8 plastic characters.
Go deeper with the books. The Carnevale Rulebook, First Edition ($32) is a 240-page softback with the background, 35 scenarios in 7 campaigns, 35 spells, and 35 Agendas. Blood on the Water ($24) is the 112-page campaign expansion, with 15 new scenarios and advanced rules like Reactions and Advanced Acrobatics.