I’m looking for a game that has rules Powered by the Apocalypse but is very short, is a self contained game with…

I’m looking for a game that has rules Powered by the Apocalypse but is very short, is a self contained game with…

I’m looking for a game that has rules Powered by the Apocalypse but is very short, is a self contained game with full rules, something that is great for one-shots and very minimalist. Any suggestions?

17 thoughts on “I’m looking for a game that has rules Powered by the Apocalypse but is very short, is a self contained game with…”

  1. So have I. It’s not to say it can’t be done, it’s that Sundered Land is a very short self-contained PbtA game that’s designed to play as one-shots. 

  2. i just recently ran a bunch of sundered land demos for strangers at a con; i had them choose 2 out of 4 games they wanted to play, then we did it.

    i found that the best experiences happened when we started with Night Watch and used that to lead into one of the other games.

  3. Though I am sure they are interchangeable; I would rather use the AWE-Full System for equivalent feel of 12 to 24 session series seasons, and The Sundered Lands for equivalent feel of 1 to 6 session movies and mini-series.

    There is also Lonely World: Day-0 and Lonely World full… though only Day-0 has a short-run focus, for what is probably obvious reasons… Any given Apocalypse will only last a few days, everything else is the post-event World disrupted by aftermath, anniversaries, and angst.

    Monster of the Week(end) might work, but the optimized length seems to be in dispute — much like how an AWESystem Optionally Makes Easy story length choices possible.

    Dream Askew looks good, but I cannot speak for it, or many others mentioned, in regard to designed lengths — I like Dream Skew just because of discussions in how a realistic cascading apocalypse is what accumulates the significant global devastation, and places more focus on the inevitable social transitions of a post-apocalypse culture emerging from the ashes soon after the main Apocalypse event(s).

    tl;dr — The Sundered Lands

  4. Seconding World of Dungeons or a variant.

    Plus, Black Stars Rise is pretty minimal and self-contained. Not sure how it’d play in a one-shot, but I think if you have decent one-shot DMing skills (pacing etc), you can have a good time with it.

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