A new indie role-playing game combines a classic Germanic legend from the Brothers Grimm with Liar’s Dice to create an experience in which the players face off with the devil itself.
Last Train to Bremen is a GM-less storytelling game written by Caro Asercion and published by Possum Creek Games (an indie TTRPG publisher who Steve Jackson Games recently acquired). The game was initially published in 2024 but is now being brought to print through a Backerkit campaign, making it the first project to be published by Possum Creek after being acquired by SJG. The story draws on the inspiration of The Town Musicians of Bremen but mixes in a hint of Devil Went Down to Georgia to the mix.
The game’s premise is simple: Four musicians made a deal with the Devil. Each musician ended up over their heads, and now the Devil has come for his due. The four musicians now have to face off to see who will survive and who will end up in the Devil’s embrace.
The concept came about when Asercion attended Big Bad Con with some friends in 2023 and found themselves wanting something to do. There wasn’t enough time to play a TTRPG, so they went with Liar’s Dice. Asercion built a larger story structure around it before publishing the digital version in 2024. Asercion also noted that a lot of the game’s influences came from their love of black box theater, which is a theatrical performance put on in a small space, often with an experimental bent. This particular theatre inspired their approach to the narrative, where players got into the mindset of characters and immediately moved toward the central conflict of the story (the dice game for their souls.)
How to Play Last Train to Bremen
Liar’s Dice, for those unfamiliar, is a game where players roll a “hand” of dice underneath a cup, then keep the results hidden. The players then bid, announcing the number of dice that might have a particular value (such as “two twos, three fives”, etc.). The players will then go around and either make a higher bid or try to challenge another player (claiming that you have “five sixes”, for example, might get you called out extremely fast, considering how unlikely that result is. The challenged player has to reveal their dice. If their bluff is true, the challenged wins. If it’s a bluff, the challenger wins. Whomever loses will lose a dice. This continues until only one player still has a dice under their cup.
Liar’s Dice has been around for centuries, with historians surmising the game originated in Peru in the 16th century, where Spanish conquistadors experienced the game for the first time. It has remained a constant gambling game since then, and even earned a prominent place in the story of Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest.
The game also tries to ease players into playing Liar’s Dice in-character. “A thing that I find very useful, which Last Train to Bremen does, is its clarity of purpose,” Jay Dragon, editorial director at Possum Creek and lead game designer at Steve Jackson Games, told The Fandomentals. “You get a tutorial built into the game where the rules tell players they will play just a round of Liar’s Dice. With no role-playing or anything. We’re just gonna, like, work through this real quick as a game, and then we’re gonna layer the role-playing on top of it in a way that feels very, very brilliant in a way that tabletop games frequently don’t take the time to do. It’s rare to have a game that has you practice just doing the actions and thinking about it as a game object before adding the narrative tool onto it once everyone is comfortable with the rules.”
Last Train of Bremen allows players to explore a tragic and almost folk-like story together. The game is designed for four players, and each player adopts the role of one of the four musicians (each themed around the animals of the Town Musicians). As they ride along in the boxcar where this story is occurring, they’ll each continue to try to outlast their opponents. Once all their dice are gone, their fate is sealed.
Don’t think for a second that the rules are just a flat interpretation of Liar’s Dice, however. Each player has their secrets and reasons for their deal with the Devil. As players lose their dice, those secrets become more evident. So once a player is down to a single die, they get to make a big reveal, which allows them to maintain some significant presence in the narrative for a slightly more extended period.
“The secret mechanic enables you to have a very fulfilling and full narrative arc,” Dragon noted. “When you’re losing, you get to frame all these scenes. You get to tell your character’s arc very dramatically and loudly. Whereas if you’re winning, your character might narratively be slightly more sidelined, even though they ultimately get to reach the final stage and fight the final villain.”
The game eventually reaches a climax that offers players a chance to finish telling the story while the losers work together to act as the final villain, creating a “final boss” scenario that remains engaging for those who lost. This ensures that players get a final chance to make a statement and impact the narrative.
The game is explicitly designed for one-shots, although it tries to provide options for replayability through the flexibility of the musician’s secrets.
If your table is looking for a short adventure that mixes board game-esque mechanics with a tragic narrative, they should give Last Train to Bremen a look.
Thanks to Jay Dragon and Caro Asercion for chatting. You can check out the Last Train to Bremen Backerkit campaign here, which launches on June 24.
Images Courtesy of Possum Creek Games
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