Do you love improv acting? Do you like really getting into the motivation and mood of a character to walk and talk as if you were them? Or do you want to get more into improv and acting then your normal gaming gathering normally has going on? Then Till the Last Gasp is worth looking into.
Till The Last Gasp is a tabletop game by Darrington Press that is all about dramatic one-on-one confrontations. With a dozen pre-generated characters and nine battlefield maps that cross many genres and settings there’s loads of replay value with the base game. However you can also create your own characters (but not locations), by answering a set of purely descriptive questions about each character. There are no attributes, levels, skills, feats, talents to worry about. Characters can fight with weapons, rhetoric, superpowers, magic, ultratech, psychic powers, or trained monsters, it all possible.
As for the mechanics themselves there is a bit of a learning curve. The mechanical layer exists to set the pace and tempo of the conflict. There’s definitely a ‘tactical’ level to this game, as you juggle your stance card versus the allocation of dice to defense and offense. Using the battlefield is key to every Objective card and each of the locations on the maps offer their own opportunities for narrative and tactical play. There’s no rolling-to-hit or rolling for damage here. Each combatant chooses a set of Objectives that are their victory conditions. First player to achieve three objectives then gets the chance to ‘end the duel decisively.’
While you could play TtLG purely for the tactical ‘win,’ like you would MtG, you’d be skipping out on the biggest part of playing: The dramatic improv acting and storytelling. Your character’s traits are all narrative and motivational. Your Objectives prompt you to describe or enact your character’s actions, thoughts and feelings, and just as often prompt your opponent to do the same. Locations on the battlefield will do this too, as will Drama cards that are drawn often and throughout the duel to add more narrative flavor. Your character will be affected by these moments and revelations. The game encourages this, which is why the stakes of the conflict will change as the game progresses. A friendly bout to prove who’s the better may turn deadly as egos are triggered and tempers flare; a duel to the death may instead result in a change in someone’s allegiances. Rivals become deadly enemies … or lovers. It's all in how the cards, dice, and player choices turn out during the course of the game. (As a side note, this reminds me a lot of the concepts behind Thirsty Sword Lesbians and the kind of drama that game seeks to enact.) All this hinges on the player’s abilities to emote their characters. If you leave the table without a sense of having experienced a dramatic encounter that changes the character’s lives forever, you’re doing it wrong.
Till The Last Gasp has all the benefits of what I'll call ‘modern gaming culture.’ There is a heavy emphasis on cooperation, collaboration, respecting boundaries (This is the first game I’ve encountered that ships with an X card). At any time either player can de-escalate the stakes of the conflict, but it takes both players agreeing to raise the stakes. The official last step of the game is to shake hands and leave the table as friends.
The production values for this boxed game are impressive; From the folding player boards, to the ‘battlefield’ maps, dice, cards and tokens, everything is well made and made to last. One can tell that the makers of the game are gamers themselves because of the attention to details present. There are ziplock bags for all the components! The only thing that would make it perfect were if the box it all came in were designed for reuse, like with a hinged lid rather than the classic clamshell pieces design.
One hope I had for this game was the possibility to use it as a kind of ‘mini game’ in concert with other game systems/engines for when the normal rules couldn’t handle such a dramatic confrontation as well as one might like. After reviewing the rules as written and discussion with fellow gamers, I’d say TtLG mostly accomplishes this goal. While it might be tempting to tweak the rules as written to give a combat-focused character some form of edge over a non-combat character, from a purely narrative point of view that’s unnecessary here. Character motivation is more important than ‘skill’ in TtLG, and that should be embraced when playing it. The plucky and determined courtier has just as good a chance as the bitter duelist hired to silence them. The only thing I’d like to see is how to make new battlefields for your duels, but the basics of how they work are straightforward and easy to use or re-use for your custom settings.
If you’re a skilled improv actor, you’ll get this game play right away. If you want to get better at improv, this is a good game for you. If you want your battles to be meaningful, emotionally impactful to those involved, and memorable for the ebb and flow of drama, this game is for you. If you just want to kick down doors, slay orcs and count gold pieces, this isn’t for you.
