Electric Bastionland

Electric Bastionland is a roleplaying game written by Chris McDowall, based on the award-winning Into The Odd ruleset. It is also the basis for a dizzying amount of hacks! 

You can check out a summary of the rules here, and you can read the free version (which includes a number of failed careers!) here. 

The Eclectic Bastion Jam is an opportunity to submit your hack, failed career, borough, adventure, dungeon - whatever you're doing, if it relates to Into The Odd, please consider submitting it here! Take a look at some of the terrific content for Into The Odd already on Itch.io, as well as these incredible games based on the original ruleset.

Submission Guidelines

Your submission should be somehow related to Into The Odd: Electric Bastionland, whether it takes the form of a content (such as a borough or adventure site), failed careers, oddities, or even a brand-new game based on the original rules. 

As for licenses, as long you aren't pulling from the game text, go wild! Use whatever copyright you are comfortable with.

Additionally, please keep the following in mind:

Electric Bastionland was written to be a roleplaying game that anybody could play. I wanted to break down the barriers between how we imagine a game should be and how it plays at the table.

This is a game to be played, not a textbook to be studied. It’s designed for the game table, not the library. Rules are false idols, numbers are rarely the answer, and plain speech always beats specialist terminology. But more than that, this is a game meant to welcome people that might not have braved the world of roleplaying games before. Maybe they aren’t drawn to wizards and dragons. Maybe they don’t want to learn complex rules. Maybe they don’t feel welcome. Everyone is welcome in Bastionland, as long as we commit to welcoming each other. 

I draw support and inspiration from the “Old School Renaissance” of game design (OSR), a loose community that takes inspiration from early roleplaying games.This doesn’t mean I want my game table to embody the ugly side of the 1970s. Bastionland itself draws from the early 20th Century, but I don’t idolise the outdated values of that era. The first principle of Bastion is “Everything is Here”, but that can be read as “Everyone is Here”. Bastionland isn’t a utopia. It has dark, horrific elements, but your table should be a warm, welcoming place. 

My goal is to break the barriers that stop us having fun at the table. Nobody should be rebuilding those barriers or creating new ones. Anybody bringing hatred, prejudice, or elitism to the table is working against the intent of this game. 

Thank you and have fun,
Chris