Gamemaster’s Notes

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Dear GM:
These pages contain notes that should make it easier to play The End Of The World. Use whatever you can.
Best of luck.

Index:
Information for players before the game p. 3

Exercises: Essential exercises p. 4

Exercises: Trust exercises p. 5

Act 1: The last day home, Information for the players p. 6

Act 1: The last day home, Notes on how to run Act 1 p. 7

Act 2: The Journey, Information for the players p. 8

Act 2: The Journey, Notes on how to run Act 2 p. 9

Act 2: The Journey: Overview of scenes p.10

Act 3: The End Of The World, Information for the players p. 11

Act 3: The End Of The World, Notes on how to run Act 3 p. 12

A short version of the notes on what happens and when p. 13

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 Information for players before the game

About the game

 This is the main characters’ story. It takes place in the final days before the end of the world.
 It is a poetic and dreamlike game. It is not about stopping the world from ending, but about getting the
most out of the final days (sadness and beauty instead of panic and fear).
 The introduction and warm up exercises will take some time. It is an important part of the game.

The structure of the game

 There are 3 acts and they are played in different styles.

The world of the game

 The world of the game is similar to our own in many ways, and different in many others.
 It is important to take some things for granted (the world ending, needing to meet at the abandoned
railway station, the journey towards The Mountain).
 You don’t use traditional names. Rather, places and people take descriptive names after what they are. The
years are not numbered.
 The mood in the game is melancholic, but it is a beautiful story about getting the most out of the time you
have left.

The Blue Room

 The main characters’ place, a kind of dreamland where they can go to talk about life and death or
comment about what is happening in their real world.
 If a player wants to go to The Blue Room, the player should raise their hand and wait for the GM to bring
them there (except for in Act 3, where the players only have to close their eyes).
 The player who takes the initiative to use The Blue Room describes what it looks like this time and which
of the main characters are also present.

(Do the exercises. Give the players their characters)

The characters
 All the characters are about to enter a new phase in their lives. This is a theme they should hold on to in
Act 1 of the game, and not start to resolve until Act 2.
 The players should describe their characters’ actions, thoughts, and feelings, using the third person.
 The main characters can have conflict with each other, but deep down they are each other’s helpers.

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 Exercises: The essential exercises

Create a descriptive name

You take turns describing yourselves when you where five years old, using the kind of names used in the
game.
For example, you might create names like The Happy Girl, The Boy Who Loved To Read, or The Shy Girl
With The Big Shoes.
Then you take turns describing yourselves when you were ten years old.
Lastly, you describe yourselves as you feel right now.
The exercise takes place before the players get their characters.

Describing how you feel using an evocative image

You take turns describing an image that evokes how you are feeling right now.
For example, you might describe excitement with an image of bubbles rising, and nervousness with an image
of you standing at the edge of an abyss.
This exercise should take place before the characters are distributed, and is therefore done with the players
describing their own feelings. This exercise will occur again before each act of the game and after listening to
Dark Dark Dark, these times describing the characters’ feelings.

Thoughts and feelings

You all take turns describing a situation from earlier today, including as many thoughts and senses as you
can.
For example, perhaps someone describes waking up in the morning, feeling tired and cold, wondering what
the day will bring, and taking a hot shower that clears the mind and brightens the day.

The Blue Room

The players take turns setting a scene in The Blue Room. They describe what it looks like and which of the
other players are present. Then they can do a short scene in The Blue Room with dialogue, or simply
describing what they are doing there.
This exercise takes place before the players get their characters. For this initial exercise, the players put
themselves in the Blue Room, and are not playing as characters.

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 Exercises: Trust exercises

Everyone should take part in these exercises, including the GM.

Long hugs
Set an alarm to go off after one minute.
Divide into pairs and stand facing one another. Look each other in the eyes and hug each other. Let the hug
last until the alarm rings.
Everybody must be silent during the exercise.
When the alarm goes off, look each other in the eyes a final time before resetting the alarm and finding new
partners. Repeat the exercise until everyone has hugged everyone else.

Eye contact
Set an alarm to go off after one minute.
Divide into pairs and sit facing one another. Take each other’s hands and look into each other’s eyes. Sit still
and maintain eye contact for the full minute.
Everybody must be silent during the exercise.
When the alarm goes off, reset it and find new partners until you everyone has had an opportunity to do the
exercise with everyone else.

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 Act 1: The last day home
- Information for the players -

The players should have the following information before beginning Act 1:

 In Act 1 the players get to know their characters by describing their lives.
 The main characters say goodbye to everything that they have known.

 In Act 1 the players describe what their characters are doing during the day. They describe the main
characters’ actions and the world around them, seen from their characters’ points of view. When they
describe the main characters’ surroundings they should keep in mind the mood of the game: no panic, but
resignation, quiet sadness, and kindness.

 Act 1 only takes place in The Town.

 Everyone in The Town has awoken, like the main characters, knowing that the world is about to end. This
brings out the best in most of them.

 The main characters have to meet at the old train station at sundown.

 The main characters may not resolve their main conflicts in Act 1. They can’t stop being lonely, The Boy
can’t grow up, The Woman With The Child can’t get used to being a parent, and so on.
 The players should describe their characters in the third person, for example describing what The Boy is
doing as opposed to using “I” statements.

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 Act 1: The last day home
- Notes on how to run Act 1 –

Form
Narrative. Cutting between the three stories.

Duration:
From when the main characters awake until they meet at the abandoned train station.

The characters’ goals:

To say goodbye to all that they have known and to be prepare themselves for the changes to come.

The GM’s job

Cut between the three stories so every character gets equal attention.
Prompt the players to describe their characters’ thoughts and feelings.
Guide the players to maintain the appropriate mood and atmosphere for the game.
Set the first and the last scenes.

The Blue Room:

A place where the main characters can meet and where they can talk freely about everything outside of
their real world.

Music
Music by Satie. “Dark Dark Dark Track 1” is played as the intro track, then all the remaining
tracks are played on repeat.

Focus:
The main characters’ thoughts and feelings. The players get to know their characters through this act.

The world
The world of the game is almost like ours, except that nobody questions why the world is about
to end.

Locations
The Town, and The Railway Station. The main characters can’t leave The Town during Act 1.

Mood:
Silence, melancholy, fear and acceptance.

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 Act 2: The journey
- Information for the players –

The players should have the following information before beginning this act:

 There are no right answers! During Act 2 the main characters will encounter some situations that will help
them to define themselves. They should not try to find the right way to solve a problem, but react to the
situation in a way that can inform them and help them to evolve.

 The scenes in Act 2 are predetermined; the players can no longer set scenes.

 The main characters evolve by taking new names.

 The characters can change names as often as the players want. A player changes a name by calling the
character by the new name. It is only during Act 2 that the main characters can change their names. By
the end of Act 2 every character has to decide upon a final, defining name.

 None of the main characters can die or be left alone, and they all have to reach The Mountain.

 There are 8 scenes in Act 2.

 The main characters are strangers in their real world, but in The Blue Room it is as if they have always
known each other.

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 Act 2: The journey
- Notes on how to run this act -
Form:
A sequence of predetermined scenes.

Duration:
From when the main characters board the train until they reach The Mountain.

Characters’ goals:
To make the characters find themselves again by giving themselves new names.

GM’s job:
Set the scenes.
Describe how the world becomes more and more empty as the act progresses.
Establish the scenes for the main characters, and be attentive to how the players want the scenes
to progress in order for their characters to evolve.

The Blue Room:

A place where the main characters can talk about all the things they can’t talk about in their real world.

Music
“Dark Dark Dark Track 2” as the intro track, followed by the music by Nino Rota. One track
per scene.

Focus:
The main characters’ actions and growth, and the slow disappearance of the world.

The world
At first loud and wild, but slowly becoming more and more empty.

Location
8 different landscapes that the main characters pass through.

Mood:
Dreamlike, curiosity, acceptance and change.

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 Act 2: The journey
- The scenes -

1) The train
The conductor welcomes them.
The steward brings food. 5) The temptation
The train runs all night. Outside is the noise of The Boy’s Scene.
animals and people celebrating their final days. The swamp. Green, muddy water.
The train stops, and the conductor tells them to Trees with their branches dragging in the water.
follow the tracks by foot. Big party, drinking, fucking, hedonism. Torches,
tables with food and drink, a band playing.
2) The wall A Girl flirts with The Boy and wants to have sex
The Boy’s scene. with him before the world ends.
The forest. Light, friendly, lots of birds and
animals. 6) The Old People
A high wall blocks their way. The Old Man’s scene.
A child has the key but won’t give it away. The cornfield. Swaying, golden corn.
The child can be sweet or antagonistic. The sound of wind, no birds or animals.
A group of old people in blue bathrobes and red
3) Lost love slippers is sitting in comfortable chairs.
The Woman With The Child’s scene. They want The Old Man to stay with them, and
The Garden. Flowers, fruit trees, peacocks, a they try to make him wear a blue bathrobe and red
fountain. slippers.
An unhappy, frustrated young man is dragging a
boat behind him. 7) The Lost Child
The boat is all he has left of the love of his life: The Woman With The Child’s scene.
The Beloved Woman. The abandoned city. Wind, half streets and houses,
The young man asks for help with the boat, so he things missing, the city disappearing.
can see his family before the world ends. The Man With The Child steals The Child from
The Woman With The Child.
4) Suicide They can follow the sound of The Child crying
The Old Man’s scene. and find him.
Elephant graveyard. Huge bones, grass, black The Man With The Child wants to keep The
birds, small lizards. Child, either to help it or to help himself.
An elderly lady is attempting suicide. She is afraid
of the world ending. 8) The Desert:
She wants help with the suicide, and hopes for a Empty, grey, the sound of wind. The Mountain At
respectful burial. The End Of The World on the horizon.

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 Act 3: The end of the world
- Information for the players -

The players should have the following information before beginning this act of the game:

 The world has almost disappeared. The Mountain, the stars and the main characters are all that is left. All
that remains will disappear by the end of Act 3.

 The players can transport their characters to The Blue Room simply by closing their eyes. The main
characters can no longer decide who else is present in The Blue Room. The other main characters can hear
a main character who is in The Blue Room, but it sounds as if the person is speaking in their sleep.

 A player can bring a main character back to reality from the Blue Room by squeezing their hand.

 In the end of Act 3, the players are asked to close their eyes, and keep them closed until after the last music
track by Dark Dark Dark.
 The important thing in this act is to resolve each of the main character’s stories, whether they are good or
bad.

 The players should help each other to find endings to their stories. They can ask each other questions or
talk about their life and dreams and what it will be like to die.
 As the volume of the music decreases, the players should lower their voices, and when the music has gone
silent, they should also be quiet. After the music goes silent, there is one more track left to play to signal
the ending of the game.

During Act 3, the players sit on the floor in a circle holding hands. If a player lets go of the other players’
hands, it means that that character has left the others and is alone in the dark until he or she finds the way
back and takes their hands again.

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 Act 3: The end of the world
- Notes on how to run this act –

Form:
The players touching simulates the closeness felt between the main characters, drifting in and out of
The Blue Room, as the world is vanishing.

Duration:
From when they sit on The Mountain to when the world has completely disappeared.

Characters’ goals:
Think about the lives they have lead and maybe find peace.

GM’s job:
Time the ending so the players have enough time to finish their stories.
Blow out the candles, turn down the music, ask the players to close their eyes in the end.

The Blue Room:

Melting together with reality. All you have to go there is to close your eyes.

Music:
“Dark Dark Dark Track 6” as the intro, followed by all Angelo Badalamenti’s tracks on repeat.
After the music goes silent, “Dark Dark Dark Track 1” is played as a final track, signaling the
end of the game.

Focus:
Thoughts, feelings and memories. Trying to find peace.

The world:
Slowly disappearing, all becoming dark and silent.

Location:
The Mountain with the stars above slowly extinguishing, one by one.

Mood:
The border between life and death, imagination and reality. Half asleep (dying), closeness, safety,
fear of the world ending.

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 A short version of the notes on what happens when

1) Presentation of the game: - Let the players describe the action, shift focus
- Information for the players. The mood and structure between them.
of the game, the world and The Blue Room. - Pause after the train station.

2) Exercises: 7) Preparation for Act 2

- Exercise: Describe yourself using a descriptive name
(as 5 years old, 10 years old, and now).
- Exercise: Describe how you are feeling right now
using an evocative image.
- Exercise: Thoughts and feelings
(Describe something you have done today).
- Exercise: The Blue Room
(Set a scene, and which of the players are
present).
3) The characters:
- Information for the players. Go over the three main
characters.
- Information for the players.
- “Dark Dark Dark 2”: Close your eyes, breathe
deeply,
think about the character and their experiences.
- Describe the characters’ feelings using a picture.
8) Act 2
- Nino Rota: one track per scene.
- 8 scenes: The train – The wall - Lost love
Suicide – The temptation - Old people
The lost child - The desert.
- Pause after the desert.

9) Preparation for Act 1

Hand out characters - Information for the players.
- “Dark Dark Dark 6”: Close your eyes, breathe
4) Trust exercises. deeply,
- Long hugs. think about the character and who they have
- Eye contact. become.
- Describe the characters’ feelings using a picture.

5) Preparation for Act 1

- Information for the players.
- “Dark Dark Dark 1”: Close your eyes, breathe
deeply,
get into the right mood, think about the character, and
find a picture to describe their feelings.
- Describe the characters’ feelings using a picture.
10) Act 3
- Angelo Badalamenti: all tracks on repeat.
- Time the ending, turn down the music,
blow out the candles, ask the players to close their
eyes.
- Ends when the music has been turned down.

11) Ending:
-6) Act 1 - “Dark Dark Dark 1”: Say goodbye to the characters
- Satie: all tracks on repeat. and the game in silence.
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