If art imitates life, it's only natural for apocalyptic inspiration to work its way into my game design practice. I do my best to keep my hope for a better world alive, but there's no pretending that we're not living through the end of the world. Or really, the end of many worlds. Don't misunderstand me, though: I don't mean to say that the globe is exploding in nuclear hellfire, or that aliens are about to invade, or that supervolcanoes are going to erupt and erase all humankind.
Rather, the end of the world as understood by The Endtimes Trilogy is but one apocalypse in a long, historical process that constantly sees worlds of any size end and begin anew. These games interrogate what it means for the world to end and what we should be doing about it. Should we ignore it and try to continue life with the status quo, like the characters in Quy Serra Serra?Should we allow the endtimes to seep into our brains and further atomize us into individual action like the warden of the bunker in Into A Warm Sun?Or should we grapple with our déjà vu and recognize the pattern of history like the players in The Way Out?
The Endtimes Trilogy is a set of three brand new tabletop roleplaying games about the end of the world. Each one comes as a 30-or-so page square 5.5" zine with the complete rules for a standalone, single-session game. Play them seperately, or combine the three games into a short campaign where the same characters live through each game's different take on the apocalypse.
Roleplay four shared characters going about their unsavory lives as they try to ignore that the world is collapsing around them. Gameplay is simple: on your turn, you'll decide whether to set a scene or introduce a new character. When it's your turn, you get to act as the GM for that scene or character's introduction, and everyone else will play a supporting role.
The game takes place across three acts. The main difference between acts is how you interact with facets. These are things that stand out to you in the story - a side character, an important heirloom, an idea, the yellow mud or spiderwebs that unnaturally coat everything in the scene, that kind of stuff.
In the game's first act, you'll create a bunch of facets after your scene concludes.
In the second act, the end of the world commences. You'll instead be destroying facets on the table based on what's happening in the world around the characters. If a main character ever loses all of their facets, they get swept up in the madness.
In the third act, you'll sort the facets based on what was destroyed, what went missing, and what somehow survived through the wreckage.
Each face card has a different prompt for a main or supporting character.
Number cards from 2-6 are scene prompts. They also tell you how many facets to create or destroy during the scene.
Live out your life in a bunker owned and operated by the warden, a prepper vindicated by some great earth-shaking calamity. You're incredibly lucky that they had the foresight to put all this together and save your life. Show some gratitude.
One player plays as the warden. They're the GM of this game, so they're in charge of setting scenes, describing the environment, and controlling the pacing of the story. They also play the warden in the fiction, so they're in charge of the bunker, the food, the entertainment, the sleeping arrangements, and everything else.
The other players, the tenants, are along for the ride. When they inevitably disagree with the warden, either in character about something the warden says or does or out of character about the pacing of the story or an event that happens, they can demand the warden roll dice to retain control of that moment of the narrative. What follows is a huge gamble played out using a dice game inspired heavily by Cee-lo. If the warden wins, they'll gain control, trust, or truth. If they lose, the tenants will inch towards freedom, doubt, or a slow reveal that the warden has been telling lies.
Take on the role of a coterie of characters with a unique burden: no matter where they appear in time and space, the world seems to be on the verge of coming to an end. When it does, their story continues elsewhere for however long it takes until that elsewhere meets its doom as well. Our concern lies not with how they transition between these times and how much they remember of their previous lives, but rather with their moment-to-moment experience in the lead-up to the end of that world.
Each chapter tells one of these stories using a talon of tarot cards. Each chapter will be fully played out by all players on equal footing; there's no GM here. Instead, everyone must roleplay in character at all times. They can describe the world around them and invent new truths about the world, but must do so from the perspective of their character sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, knowledge, and intuition. If that's too restrictive, fear not. The game's moves help expand your narrative power, allowing you to embody other characters for a time, narrate out of character, cut the scene, remain silent, experience deja vu, and more.
Each move slides one of the tarot cards to the center of the talon in numerical order. If you move a major arcana, the Bringer arrives and complicates things for the coterie. If there's nothing to slide, you start the count again and begin the end of the world. Once all cards are played, that world ends. A new chapter begins with the same characters manifested in a different place and time to repeat the cycle, again and again.
Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai
Prompt-driven narrative games like The Quiet Year and A Land Once Magic
Society's insistence that we "return to normal" "after" COVID-19
Into A Warm Sun
10 Cloverfield Lane
Horror roleplaying games like Ten Candles
The common idea of being a prepper instead of building social structures that can withstand the collapse of our way of life
The Way Out
War and War by László Krasznahorkai
Belonging Outside Belonging games like Dream Askew/Dream Apart
Bearing witness to the endless apocalypses rained down upon the world on a yearly, monthly, and daily basis by the imperialism that reinforces capitalist hegemony
I've partnered with moreblueberries to bring even more tabletop fun to our joint backers. If you back their project Rise, Wizards! & All's Fair as well as The Endtimes Trilogy, and both projects fully fund, you will receive a pdf copy of a brand new one page game called I Ended the World.
This is a collaboration between the designer of All's Fair (Dillin Apelyan), the designer of Rise, Wizards! (Robin Ekberg), and me (Adam Bell) where you'll tell the story of a villain who is on the path to end the world as we know it. It combines elements from both projects into a one page game you can play solo or as a group. Play to find out which decisions will lead your villain to end the world!
Game Design, Layout, Publishing, Covers for Into A Warm Sun & Quy Serra Serra
Adam Bell
Editing and Other Support
Sashah Li
Cover for The Way Out
Angelo Dante
All words and images used and featured in this project are made by humans.
💥 Zinetopia 2026
This project is participating in Zinetopia! A Small-format TTRPG event celebrating Zine Month running February 2–27, 2026.
📖 What is Zine Month? Zine Month is a month-long online celebration observed every February by the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) community where creators share and launch new DIY zines.
🔥 Unlock the Limited Zinetopia Freebie! Receive the limited edition Zinetopia 2026 Group Zine when you back 5+ projects featuring 60+ pages from participating creators full of mini-games, sketches, activity pages, and more!
