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Uncanny Echo
Uncanny Echo is a tabletop roleplaying game that uses the Powered by the Apocalypse engine to play out stories of supernatural and uncanny urban fiction.
It is comprised of 10 full Powered by the Apocalypse games called issues. Each utilizes a stripped down ruleset that gets you to the table with little to no prep time utilizing mechanics like keys from Lady Blackbird and clocks from The Sprawl and Blades in the Dark.
Each of these games is built to be a focused experience intended to be a one-shot or fiction that connects each session with the next emergently, creating a meta-narrative through this connective tissue. Giving it a choose-your-own-adventure quality.
These games leverage a uniform game engine to highlight how each intersects while displaying the customizations that make the particular game distinct from the rest; crafting a unique mechanical framework, experience, and game system for each.
The 10 issues included are:
The Heist: Bank robbers who break into a bank that holds something uncanny inside.
Suburbia: Neighbors in a cul-de-sac uncover something strange and band together to get to the bottom of it.
Takers: Individuals with unique gifts that let them erase and consume all evidence of the uncanny.
Restless: Strange events in an old folk home lead to residents investigating the disappearance of one of their own.
Present: Ambulance drivers witness the uncanny as they experience the longest night of their lives.
Faith: The last of a secret order of priests that deal with ghosts, demons, and all manner of entities have their faith challenged while solving a mystery.
Bargains: Musicians who struck a bargain with the devil now pool their collective knowledge to get their souls back.
Fractured: People who were ripped from their place in time and history after experiencing an uncanny event struggle to reverse their fate.
Fabrication: Part Imagineers, part couriers—Fabricators are tasked with altering the environment of a location at the behest of their employers.
Lies: A modern noir scenario that has the players inhabit one high school kid whose friend has gone missing, causing them to re-enter a dangerous underworld.
It is comprised of 10 full Powered by the Apocalypse games called issues. Each utilizes a stripped down ruleset that gets you to the table with little to no prep time utilizing mechanics like keys from Lady Blackbird and clocks from The Sprawl and Blades in the Dark.
Each of these games is built to be a focused experience intended to be a one-shot or fiction that connects each session with the next emergently, creating a meta-narrative through this connective tissue. Giving it a choose-your-own-adventure quality.
These games leverage a uniform game engine to highlight how each intersects while displaying the customizations that make the particular game distinct from the rest; crafting a unique mechanical framework, experience, and game system for each.
The 10 issues included are:
The Heist: Bank robbers who break into a bank that holds something uncanny inside.
Suburbia: Neighbors in a cul-de-sac uncover something strange and band together to get to the bottom of it.
Takers: Individuals with unique gifts that let them erase and consume all evidence of the uncanny.
Restless: Strange events in an old folk home lead to residents investigating the disappearance of one of their own.
Present: Ambulance drivers witness the uncanny as they experience the longest night of their lives.
Faith: The last of a secret order of priests that deal with ghosts, demons, and all manner of entities have their faith challenged while solving a mystery.
Bargains: Musicians who struck a bargain with the devil now pool their collective knowledge to get their souls back.
Fractured: People who were ripped from their place in time and history after experiencing an uncanny event struggle to reverse their fate.
Fabrication: Part Imagineers, part couriers—Fabricators are tasked with altering the environment of a location at the behest of their employers.
Lies: A modern noir scenario that has the players inhabit one high school kid whose friend has gone missing, causing them to re-enter a dangerous underworld.
206 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 2018
10 people want to read
About the author
Fraser Simons
9 books297 followersFraser Simons is a tabletop role-playing game designer. Most notably The Veil, Hack the Planet, and Retropunk. He self publishes his work through Samjoko Publishing and Wrecking Ball Games,
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 30, 2019
Great rpg work. It's the first real fully collaborative campaign experience that I've read. Some games presents collaborative gaming between the table (like all the PbtA, Houses of the Blooded/Blood and Honor, Lady Blackbird, etc.), but this is the first no prep, no hard setting, ready-to-play set of oneshoots that you could link in one great urban "weirdish" campaign. All that you need is a group of friends with a lot of proactivity and creativity mood. Amazing art, every word in it is usable and playable, good movie-related references, collaboration and safety recommendations... excellent.
By the other hand, for me it's not 5 stars due to the lack of some examples in the main narrative (the dissonances/echos). You have a lot of examples, lists and so on for PC, scenario setup questions and another tools in order to start immediately the gaming experience, but no real example for the core theme in each module it's a weakness. Yes, that solution allow you to fill this empty with any idea, but some list of examples could do the same and add that kind of help that could make this campaign perfect.
A good new rpg wave work to have and play.
By the other hand, for me it's not 5 stars due to the lack of some examples in the main narrative (the dissonances/echos). You have a lot of examples, lists and so on for PC, scenario setup questions and another tools in order to start immediately the gaming experience, but no real example for the core theme in each module it's a weakness. Yes, that solution allow you to fill this empty with any idea, but some list of examples could do the same and add that kind of help that could make this campaign perfect.
A good new rpg wave work to have and play.
Displaying 1 of 1 review