Electric Bastionland
Electric Bastionland is Chris McDowall's industrial-weird fantasy TTRPG of debt-ridden treasure hunters exploring Bastion, Deep Country, and the Underground with classless characters, no attack rolls, and fast, dangerous expeditions.
Industrial weird-fantasy expeditions | 3-5 players + Referee | Bastionland / OSR rules | Free quickstart plus paid PDF/print | Best for low-prep campaigns driven by debt and discovery
Electric Bastionland is best for groups that want low-prep, debt-driven expeditions through a weird industrial city where character identity comes from failed careers, odd gear, and the trouble you survive rather than from build trees or balanced encounter math. It is one of the clearest modern examples of how old-school danger can be made faster, cleaner, and stranger without turning into a retroclone.
It is a weaker fit if your table wants heroic fantasy comfort, tactical character optimization, or exhaustive setting canon before the first session. Electric Bastionland pushes treasure hunters into action quickly and expects the Referee to answer bold plans with consequences, not with a long menu of codified exceptions.
What the game is
Electric Bastionland is a standalone TTRPG by Chris McDowall and Bastionland Press. It grows out of Into the Odd (Remastered), but turns that stripped-down chassis toward a broader campaign frame: debt-ridden treasure hunters, a sprawling city called Bastion, the decaying reaches of Deep Country, and impossible tunnels beneath everything.
The core pitch is immediate and practical. Your character starts with a Failed Career and a colossal debt, so the game begins with motive, social texture, and pressure already in place. That gives the setting its identity: this is not generic fantasy wandering, but desperate, curious, opportunistic expeditions into places that feel crowded, crumbling, and full of strange technology or stranger people.
Publication history and editions
Electric Bastionland was released in 2020 and remains the active Bastionland flagship for this branch of the rules family. The current official print route is the Bastionland Press hardback, which the checked store page lists at £50 with a bundled PDF. The official digital storefront is the itch.io edition, currently listed at $24 with the full PDF.
The current onboarding path is unusually generous. The official itch page includes a downloadable quickstart, and the separate Electric Bastionland Free Edition provides the player-facing rules plus ten of the full game's hundred-plus Failed Careers. That means a table can test the core loop before deciding whether it wants the entire book.
Product line and what you need to play
The full core book is the real foundation. Bastionland Press describes it as a 336-page hardback with fast rules, over 100 Failed Careers, guidance for play in Bastion, Deep Country, and the Underground, and an essay-and-sample-content section called the Oddendum. You also need a Referee and players willing to solve problems through equipment, movement, and risky choices rather than through dense character powers.
For a first session, the most practical starting materials are the free edition or quickstart. For long-term play, the full book matters because its value is not only the resolution engine; it is also the campaign advice, the setting texture, and the way the book helps a Referee turn odd hooks into playable situations without extensive prep.
Major adventures and support material
Electric Bastionland is not only a single core book with no follow-through. The official Bastionland itch profile currently points to support such as Prison of the Worm Queen, a starter adventure, Wrecked on the Goragath, and The Twelve Failed Careers of Oddmas. None of these are required, but they help show that the line supports actual play rather than only a one-book concept pitch.
Digital tools and online play
Based on the checked official sources, Electric Bastionland is still a PDF-first game rather than a VTT-first one. The support emphasis is on the core PDF, the quickstart, and printable preview materials. Online groups should expect to bring their own shared notes, maps, or virtual tabletop scaffolding rather than rely on a major official digital platform.
Core rules and play structure
The rules are deliberately compact. Bastionland Press pitches them as fast and simple enough to fit on a two-page spread, and the play style follows through on that promise. Characters make d20 saves, combat skips a separate attack-roll step and moves straight to consequences, and the real decisions come from position, equipment, timing, and whether pushing forward is worth the cost.
The larger structure matters just as much as the resolution. Electric Bastionland gives the Referee tools for Bastion, Deep Country, and the Underground, so the game can move between cramped city schemes, decaying hinterland travel, and impossible subterranean danger without changing systems. The debt premise keeps the party from stalling: you need leads, treasure, leverage, or some other way to keep the wolves off your back.
Characters, roles, and advancement
Characters are classless. The official product page emphasizes more than 100 Failed Careers, and that is a large part of why Electric Bastionland works so well as a starting point for real play. A Failed Career gives a character history, equipment, and a place in the setting immediately, which does more work than a neutral stat block ever could.
Identity stays item-driven and situational. Growth is less about unlocking a long list of powers and more about what you carry, what you owe, what you have damaged or discovered, and how the world now reacts to you. That makes advancement feel emergent, which is excellent for players who like being changed by the campaign and poor for players who want carefully planned build paths.
Signature mechanics
- Failed Careers: fast character identity tied directly to the setting instead of abstract class packages.
- Debt pressure: the starting debt gives almost every group an immediate reason to go treasure hunting.
- No attack-roll pause: combat is fast, nasty, and focused on consequences rather than on repeated misses.
- Oddities over spell lists: strange gear and discoveries create problem-solving play without turning the game into option overload.
- The Oddendum and Referee guidance: a big part of the book's value is how much it teaches a Referee about running this kind of campaign.
What play feels like
At the table, Electric Bastionland feels fast, pressurized, and delightfully off-center. The weirdness is not decorative background. Bastion is crowded with legal absurdity, failed schemes, social friction, and treasures that can make everything worse before they make anything better. Deep Country and the Underground widen the scope without softening the tone.
That combination is why the game often lands so well with players who like exploration but want more personality than a neutral dungeon engine provides. Sessions tend to move from rumor to risk quickly, and the world feels like it can spit back at bad choices immediately. If your table likes seeing plans go sideways in interesting ways, this is a feature, not a bug.
Running the game
Electric Bastionland is genuinely lower prep than many fantasy campaign games, but it is not effortless. The Referee still has to adjudicate boldly, turn odd details into actionable hooks, and keep the pressure on without railroading. The reward is that the book appears to be written for exactly that job. Review coverage has repeatedly singled out its GM-facing advice as a major reason the game stands out.
In practice, it is strongest for Referees who like rulings, improvisation, and campaign momentum. It is less comfortable for GMs who want tightly balanced combat encounters or adventure paths that answer every likely player move in advance.
Campaign fit
Electric Bastionland can handle one-shots because the quickstart path is real and the premise gets a group moving fast. But it is stronger as a campaign game than the old seed entry suggested. Debt, recurring expeditions, odd discoveries, and the difference between Bastion, Deep Country, and the Underground all pay off more when the same crew keeps returning to the table with new scars, liabilities, and opportunities.
If your group only wants a single session, the free edition is enough to decide whether the tone and procedures work. If you want a long arc of weird-city treasure hunting with minimal rules overhead, the full book is where Electric Bastionland becomes distinct rather than merely efficient.
Reception and awards
Reception has remained strong. The official itch page currently shows a 5.0 average across 81 ratings, which is a meaningful signal for a niche indie TTRPG rather than a stray handful of launch-week reviews. The 2020 ENNIE Awards nominees page also lists Electric Bastionland in Best Writing, which fits the game's long-running reputation for concise but evocative guidance.
Critical coverage is aligned with that response. Tabletop Gaming praised the game for feeling both modern and old-school at once, and that remains a useful summary of why the page is strategically important on this site: Electric Bastionland is one of the clearest reference points for players trying to understand why the Bastionland and NSR-adjacent branch of fantasy adventure feels different in play.
Where it is strongest
- Groups that want low-prep fantasy expeditions with strong table identity from the first session.
- Players who enjoy item-driven, classless characters and solving problems through position, equipment, and nerve.
- Referees who want excellent campaign advice without adopting a heavy fantasy ruleset.
- Tables curious about the line between old-school play and newer NSR-style presentation.
Where it can frustrate groups
- Players who want deep build customization, balanced combat roles, or generous mechanical safety nets.
- Groups that prefer high-fantasy heroics to debt, grime, satire, and industrial weirdness.
- Referees who dislike improvisational rulings or want every edge case solved by explicit rules text.
- Online groups hoping for a large official VTT ecosystem rather than a PDF-first game.
Content and safety notes
Expect violence, debt pressure, bodily harm, grotesque oddities, class tension, and a generally uncaring world. The tone is often funny in a dry or absurd way, but the underlying play still leans toward risk, scarcity, and characters who can be permanently changed by what they find.
Best starting path
Start with the Free Edition or the quickstart download on the official itch page. If your group clicks with the debt-driven premise and fast consequences, move to the full PDF or the current hardback. After that, the best comparison path on this site is to read it next to Into the Odd (Remastered), Cairn, and Mythic Bastionland.
Research notes
Last checked: July 7, 2026.