Luke Hawksbee

“How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb Shelter (24hr Edition)” is a game of paranoia and treachery for at least 4 players. A VIP named Keeton a senior political or academic figure is trapped in a bomb or fallout shelter with people they thought they could trust, but someone is out to kill them.

It is somewhat similar to a murder mystery, except that instead of investigating the murder, players have to carry it out or prevent it, depending on the role assigned to them. The fun lies largely in the fact that roles (with the exception of the GM) are randomly assigned in secret, so that nobody knows quite who to trust. The number of assassins is randomly determined and players draw lots blind to determine their individual roles. All anyone (except the GM) knows at the start of the game is that there is at least one would-be killer and whether or not they themselves are a killer.

The game can be played using different scenarios, which define the nature of the setting and the types of characters. Two scenarios are included in this version of the game: “Get Down In The Bomb Shelter, Mr(s) President” (where players attempt to protect or kill a political figure such as a King, Queen or President in a high-security official nuclear fallout bunker) and “Porterhouse Code Blue” (where players attempt to protect or kill the master of an Oxbridge college in a wine cellar, basement lecture hall or Anderson shelter).

The game is designed to be played in a single sitting face-to-face, but it could be played in other formats (such as play-by-post or LARP) with little or no modification.

Note: “How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb Shelter” requires players (particularly the GM) to separate what they know as a person in the real world from what their character knows within the fiction nothing ruins the fun of plotting, backstabbing, lying and scheming like a player who constantly decides that their character suddenly needs to urinate when Keeton is being discreetly strangled in the bathroom.

Due to the competitive nature of the game, it is unlikely to be suitable for groups containing players who are too immature or inexperienced in RPGs to maintain this separation.