Last Train to Bremen
A downloadable tragedy
You know the way these stories go:
Thirteen years ago, four struggling musicians made a deal with the Devil. What were they chasing? Fame, riches, adoration. Your classic Devil fare.
What happened next? Well, you know the way these stories go: the damned fools got it in their head to try and outrun their end of the bargain.
See, the Devil is coming to collect his due, and he doesn’t take kindly to those who can’t cough up. Which brings this story to the four of us here, now, huddled in the back of a freight car on a train hurtling to the one place the Devil will never catch us. One final, desperate shot at immortality.
And if we’re lucky? By the end of the night, one of us will still be left alive to tell the tale.
LAST TRAIN TO BREMEN is a storytelling game of doomed musicians and poor decisions. Perfect for a self-contained one shot, LAST TRAIN uses snappy rules based on Liar’s Dice and other push-your-luck dice games to deliver a tale of secrets, tension, backstabbing, and betrayal.
Build your band, saddle them with baggage, flee your cursed contract, and reflect together on all the choices you made that led you down this sorry path.
Three hours, roughly • Four players, exactly • Thirteen six-sided dice
Illustrations & Layout Development by Conner Fawcett
Dramaturgy & Editing by Weaver Walker
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Winner of The Awards 2024
Purchase
In order to download this tragedy you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Download demo
Development log
- A few quick tweaksMay 04, 2024
Comments
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Played this game at a convention recently, and it is absolutely fantastic. Easy to set up but requires a strong group of role-players who are willing to lean into the characters they choose. Intimate, elegant, and absolutely brutal storytelling. My biggest regret is that I will never be able to play this game for the first time ever again, but I'm already looking forward to the next time I get to face the devil!
This game is killer. The aesthetics and tone hit the mark. Our group ended up with a final roll that was so perfectly cinematic that it almost felt fated. Best of all, this game /actually/ fit into one 3 hour session. I loved this and will be recommending it constantly. And because of this game, I'll be carrying a set of dice in my bag with me to pull out with friends!
Last Train to Bremen is one of the best oneshots I've played. Great character dynamics, a clear tone, and compelling theming, all built around a nail-biting core game mechanic. When I first read the rules I wasn't sure how the liar's dice would integrate with the storytelling, but it jives really well, generating unexpected character moments in semi-random ways and blending strategic motivations (winning the round) with narrative ones (getting involved with the story). We ended up with a band held together only by spite, where every member for different reasons had given up on the prospect of making genuinely good music. Our Cat very nearly made it out ... but in the end the Devil got his due!
I'll be raving about this one for a long time!
Just finished playing this one, it rocks! I loved playing a very evil Mule and getting away with it all because of it. A beautiful game with pitch perfect prompts, questions, and twists.
Played this last night with friends - awesome game! Amazing visual style and writing. I loved how the prompts for relationships instantly established very messy relationships between characters and good starting points for fleshing out deeper conflicts. I played the Hound, a whirlwind disaster of a girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and was sleeping with everyone else in the band. We also had Mule, a tall dark big man who didn't say much but did what needed doing, Cat, an aging rocker control freak lady who wanted to recapture her youth, and Cockerel, a bone fide asshole.
Great game! It ended right when it felt right with a few poetic turns aided by the dice and was neither too long nor too short. Make your memories count - you might or might not appear in other people's memories, but you're only guaranteed your own.
Looking forward to purchasing a hardcopy someday...
played this with friends (thanks Soluna for introducing it!). absolutely great time that was so full of twists and such deep characterization in such a short amount of time! absolutely buying a copy for myself and bringing it to others - the furry punks I know are gonna love this one
strongly recommend that prospective players don't read ahead in the manual!! going in spoiler-free is wonderful
this looks SO cool!!!
Just played this with a group of good friends. Beautiful work, so tense and emotional, deeply touched.
Hi, love the game! I do have one criticism, printing this game is hard. The character sheets should ocuppy two pages but the pdf has them as one page. I would also like to have a print friendly version.
Cheers!
I've just updated the game files to include a more printer-friendly version of the rules!
The game text and playsheets print a little more easily if you print from the spreads file, rather than trying to print two singles to a page.
Hello. I would like to email you regarding an icon I found on Game-Icons and would like to use it. Can you please provide an email that I can contact? Thank you!
I'd love to print this up zine-style for my table -- is there a version of it that doesn't have the beige background?
I've just updated the game files to include a more printer-friendly version of the rules, including spreads that are pre-formatted for double sided/ zine style printing. Hope this helps!
By the looks of it, this seems to be a cool rpg! Is there an overview somewhere of the rules and contents of this game?
Thanks for your interest! I've added a demo (0. Contents.txt) which provides an overview of all the files that come packaged in the core game. Hope this helps!
Hello! Are you able to send me an email: ash@long-tail.games
This is the perfect structure for a new project I'm working on. Can we talk collaboration?
Hi! Waow this pitch is awesome. Give me chills!
Can you explain if this is a classical TTRPG or a GMless one?
It’s GMless! While you’ll want at least one person to keep the rules on hand to help facilitate, it should still be playable with four players who are sitting down with the text for the very first time.