Absurdia is an absurdist modern fantasy roleplaying game about the inane hilarity and understated horror of everyday life. Inspired by works of absurd humor, surreal horror, and literary nonsense like Welcome to Night Vale, Alice in Wonderland, Gravity Falls, and the Twilight Zone, Absurdia is an opportunity to indulge in the surreal and outlandish while subverting the absurdity of modern society.
When you play this game, you’ll play people trapped in a suburban town unmoored from space and time, wracked by the surreal entropy of chaos. You’ll contend with arcane bureaucracy, sentient machines, maniacal PTAs, malevolent garden flora, and the occasional cosmic horror as you attempt to survive, overcome, and perhaps even escape the darkly idyllic community. Absurdia's game mechanics are Powered by the Apocalypse.
We’re located in the small town of Supine, somewhere in Delaware. No one can leave, but people certainly can enter. Home to a sentient school, abandoned Mega Mall, and an aspiring American Ninja Warrior team.
Refresh: tap into a new source of entropic power. Mark Vestige to push yourself or help out on a basic move (roll 3d6 and discard the lowest die), to avoid all harm from a single attack, or when a playbook move tells you to. When you mark the last box on your track, you drop out of the scene and return later with a Fracture.
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When you mark your last harm box, you are dead unless someone can act immediately to save you.
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Mark experience when you fulfill one of your agendas, or when a playbook move tells you to.
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Entropic Soul: You can accumulate 5 Fractures instead of 4 before you must retire this character. For each fracture you have, add one box to your Vestige track.
Marked for Chaos: You have been baptized in the entropic currents churning just beneath the surface of reality. Mark Embrace Chaos as an advanced move.
Revenant: Your body is animated by more than blood and sinew. You no longer die when you mark your last harm box. You may continue to take action as normal for the remainder of the scene, and additional harm has no effect on you. At the end of the scene, clear all your harm boxes and take a fracture.
Pariah: The whole town knows what happened to you. Knows what you’re capable of. When you Goad, you may roll +Chaos instead of against reputations
Call for aid- requesting resources
Rally- incite members of a faction to act
Gather Information- name a contact and roll their faction
Goad - leverage infamy against a faction to get them to act
Renege- faction calls in a debt you owe and you refuse to help
| -3 | -2 | -1 | 0 | +1 | +2 | +3 | |
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| bureaucracy | ✅ | ||||||
| community | ✅ | ||||||
| entropy | ✅ | ||||||
| underbelly | ✅ |
| 3 max | ||
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| wits | assess reality, save skin | -1 |
| cheek | hoodwink, sway | +O |
| pluck | face fear, fight for your life | +1 |
| chaos | embrace chaos | +2 |