Everest Pipkin’s World Ending Game (2022) aims to provide a coda for your campaign, no matter the system or subject matter and, perhaps unsurprisingly if you are familiar with Pipkin’s other RPG work, it does so in an elegant and though-provoking manner.

It’s a collaborative storytelling game that leans heavily on the language of cinema to guide the group to a satisfying wrap up. I should be clear, though, that it is not a game that resolves conflict. That should be taken care of already, in the final session of the main campaign. This comes after. It’s a denouement engine.

The use of cinematic language for mechanics is super interesting. It initially grated on me, perhaps because I associate that so much with the Star Wars RPG, or because it seems somewhat artificial, but I eventually warmed up to it. Film-making, after all, is a storytelling craft that requires the work of many collaborators. I think the thing that sold me was the note that editing is important — the game might generate scenes that don’t work and that it is OK and perhaps necessary to discard them.

After the core mechanics are explained, we’re presented with 20 potential endings, each illustrated by a different artist, each with its own set of concerns. The guidance for a traditional apocalypse is of course very different from the 50-year flash-forward or the Karaoke Bar framework that functions in some ways like a musical (songs play a big part in all the endings; the core rules encourage everyone to bring a short playlist, no matter which ending framework the players will be working with).

It’s novel and interesting. It isn’t for everyone, and even the folks who are open to it will be puzzled by some of the offered endings (I am!). But that’s sort of beautiful in its own right — if I related to all the endings on display, that would mean the RPG hobby was a lot narrower in scope than it is, and I love being reminded that there are all sorts of games out there that aren’t meant for me.