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?
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…
Monster of the Week?
The Sundered Land. It’s pretty much exactly that, with each modular interchangeable mini-game taking between 60 and 90 minutes.
Apocalypse World? The barebones rules can literally fit onto 2 pages.
Apocalypse World is not ideal for one-shots, plus if you cut it down to two pages you are cutting out a lot.
I would disagree, I’ve run several one-shots of AW with great success.
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.
Dream Askew meets all of the criteria!
The Sundered Land and World of Dungeons would be my picks.
Um, Nanoworld: A Game of Clones is PbtA, self contained but with full rules, and very minimalist… Just sayin’…
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.
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
Wow! Thanks for all these great recommendations. I look forward to checking them all out 🙂
I like tremulus as well lovecraftian horror.
Murderous Ghosts is a one-shot, takes ~20min. For a GM and one player. Lots of fun.
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.
Sundered Land, totally. That reminds me. I wanna go play some more Sundered Land!
How about “World of Dirty Dungeons”? Combine John Harper’s 3-page ‘World of Dungeons’ with John Wick’s ‘Dirty Dungeons’.
https://plus.google.com/101025241405784788544/posts/1WU5oVu2JhN