PocketQuest is DriveThruRPG’s themed festival of new releases and content. This year, the flavour is heist, it is on right now, and all the TTRPGs in it must fit into just 25 pages and have everything you need to play.
Appropriately enough, publisher Almost Bedtime Theater has contributed to it with a newly release called The Heist Episode.
One target. One night. One chance. Your team has been gathered from across time, places, and universes to pull off an impossible heist. The plan? Infiltrate a dream, grab the goods, and escape through the Gate of Horn to bring them back with you. Don’t worry about the bit where you can’t remember who you’re stealing from, what you’re stealing, or who you’re stealing it for. It’ll all come back to you eventually. Probably.
The game is a one-shot and suggests you can even use old PCs (one last heist) if you don’t want to whisk up new ones. The five phases; prep, three acts and an epilogue need 3 to 5 players, tokens for each, 3d6 and character sheets.
Author Dan Bronson-Lowe shares the touchstones for the game and they might not be what you expect. Is it Ocean’s 11? Nope; they’re
- Inception
- The Sandman
- The Matrix
If you’re wondering how those mash together into a heist then Geek Native can add to the mix because we had the chance to get some insights from Dan and discovered bits appropriately borrowed from other TTRPGs.
Dan told us,
My favorite part of making The Heist Episode was finding a way to mesh mechanics from several TTRPGs into a single, coherent system. I admittedly had too many game mechanics at the start. Some had to be cut, others tweaked, but those that remained fit together well. Nailing down that final version was incredibly satisfying.
So, there you have it! We have The Heist Episode in PocketQuest, which takes bits and pieces of rules, ideas, and touchstones from various sources.
It might even steal your favourite PCs from other games. Curious? It’s less than five bob.
Quick Links
- PocketQuest: The Heist Episode
What are your thoughts? Strike up a discussion and leave a comment below.
