Have you ever wanted to get involved in running tabletop roleplaying games and thought “But I have no ideas!”? The Big Red Couch is designed to show exactly how easy it is to get from random notions that stick in your mind to playable concepts, all through the medium of the kind of casually weird spitballing that gamers engage in at the best of times. In every issue, the intrepid contributors to the Big Red Couch brave the noisome wonders of The Mystery Box to produce a randomly-selected seed idea, then return Some Time Later to share what they came up with and discuss how those concepts might work as games. If we can do it, anyone can: that’s the whole idea. Along the road, we discuss what RPG systems might work for implementing different concepts, together with reasons how or why. This frequently involves adaptation of systems from their original settings to the point where they creak under the strain.
New Zealand & United Kingdom
Craig went to Gen Con, and is forcing you to hear about it,Ben tries to moderate this audio equivalent of a “What I Did On My Holidays” slideshow,And we ask the audient how they like to do conventions. Tāmaki Makaurau Gen Con New York – New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas Episode One […]
The fifth day out of “the four best days of gaming”? Is this worst day of gaming? Or the day of worst gaming? Reminiscence, nostalgia, and unhinged grumbling trail in the wake of our hero's journey, the pains of old wounds and faded glories herald the end of yet another lost era. Professional Game Master […]
A tale ripped from the headlines, rude villainy abounds.When is checkout time again? Film – Lorenzo's_Oil (1992) Gizmodo.com article on GenCon 2023 Card Theft Urban Shadows: Second Edition by Magpie Games – Kickstarter page in fulfillment phase. Rapscallion Quickstart also by Magpie Games Family Tettigoniidae – Kaydids from all over. (T. Jones – Pretty bog-standard […]
Despite the Southern chill these flames still burn brightly and while the Devil dances in the hearth, he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Orc Stomp XIII 5k Fun Run – (T. Jones ~ Enjoying the note “Tournament: No, this is not a tournament.”) Chew from Imagining Games KiwiRPG – Kēmu Whakatau […]
The promise of glorious perspiration hangs in the morning air.From waterborne villainy to a terrible hunger, a course is plotted.Hope, and sturdy footwear, may yet carry the day. Avatar Legends by Magpie Games Chew from Imagining Games
An iron steed shies at the thunder of the Old Gods.The dawn of a new age, as life stirs on a blasted plane.At some point… breakfast. Well There's Your Problem Podcast – A podcast (with slides) about engineering disasters and systemic fail. Precision_Railroading AKA precision scheduled railroading (PSR) The Old Gods of Appalachia Podcast and […]
What's this? A new episode? The land quakes and the seas roar, for they have returned like the heroes of old! Well, like old heroes anyway. People. Old people. Never meet your heroes, kids. Biding his time in the foetid swamp of Wah-Shing-Tun, the fearless traveler Craig set his sights on the “four and a […]
Now GenCon is over for another year, it is a time for quiet reflection, sensations of creeping dread, and a commitment to doing more gaming. Better even! Yes, this is late. We are so, so tired. Tentacle Town Le Chat Noir Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior The Underarm bowling incident of 1981 Dr Nick Holm: how […]
As the day dawns on the morning of the last day of GenCon for another year, Craig reminisces about this convention's atmosphere and a strange sense of gamer melancholy. Wayfaring Strangers by Games from the Wild Wood Talismonger – Shadowrun slang Simple Simon (nursery rhyme) TV – Supernatural Alice Isn't Dead TV – The Sandman […]
The second report from Craig's GenCon 2022 trip.
Activate The Goose-ducer! – Descendants of an end-of-days science experiment battle the descendants of a different end-of-days science experiment through the use of yet another end-of-days science experiment. The Dream Police Want To Make Sure That Nothing Is Inside Your Head – Dreaming is illegal, Science Rays ensure that nobody dreams, and Z-Leggers smuggle stolen […]
To My Esteemed Undersea Colleague – Beneath the ice of Europa, isolated Mecha Pilots on long patrols stay in touch by writing letters back & forth Aquapastoral – Flooding can be expected after a storm, but nobody expected the water to be 30 feet above the farmhouse roof, and they certainly didn't expect the water […]
Donuts & Crullers – Ben starts to make a game about a TV Genre he hates, and ends up inventing a card mechanic for cooking competitions. 24/7 Coffee & Questions – Craig tries to come up with an explanation for the “high-level adventurer running a tavern” trope, and ends up with a mystery hiding in […]
Presley Event Overload – The timeline is fracturing under a cascade of divergence events, splitting faster than they can be investigated, let alone dealt with. There's no clear pattern to what's happening, though a certain 20th Century musician seems to be affected by more of the changes than mere coincidence would permit. The Mystery Of […]
Be Our Guest? – Ever since the actual apocalypse, the Hosts at the Apocalypse World park really haven't had a lot to do. Now that some Guests in dire need of help have arrived, a group of ‘wasteland marauders' and ‘besieged remnants of civilization' have to figure out how to bypass their own programmed scripts […]
The Heroes are defeated, ground down by a controlling society. As the last remaining bastion of ‘otherness', Mad Scientists reach out to children through the medium of educational television, trying to spark a sense of rebellion in the only people who can still hear them. Educational Television in a world of Science Heroes, Supergenius Villains, […]
A safe but dull utopia has an unexpected need for people who can go outside of the norm and venture into dangerous situations.They're a bit light on those, as a society, but by relaxing the constraints a bit on the psych profiles, they've got some candidates who are within a few standard deviations of ‘Adventurous'. […]
Craig tries to combine A Christmas Carol with Solo Shifts on a Spaceship, and fails, but Ben recovers the idea Ben pitches the idea of a Clip Show Holiday Episode of an RPG campaign, as a way to look back on the game so far & a sneaky way to see which bits the players […]
Ben, Craig, & Special Guest Terry attempt to get to grips with the “pastoral fantasy” RPG Wanderhome, and probably succeed, in our first approximate actual play episode. Wanderhome, by Jay Dragon, can be purchased from Possum Creek Games. Wanderhome is a pastoral fantasy role-playing game about traveling animal-folk, the world they inhabit, and the way […]
But Mister Darcy, Who Will Play The Cleric? The Best Four Days Of Gaming, Terror, and Existential Dread! No, We're Not With Those Bad Guys, We're A Completely Separate Group Of Bad Guys. Also, We're Not Bad Guys, Stop Calling Us That. SydneySydney Airport Battlefleet Gothic Gen ConOriginsE3Metatopia WarhammerGames Workshop 4k Explorer (YouTube) South ShieldsSmuggler's […]
The Potstickers of Dorian Gray – When unexplained events occur, when there's no rational explanation, and when you desperately need to keep things quiet so that the FBI doesn't notice what you're up to, your only hope is Those Meddling Kids. Cultural Misappropriation: The RPG – To protect our culture from the Humans, we will […]
The Greatest Kingdom In History is facing certain destruction, and while they can't save the place, they can save the people.Of course, to do so, someone has to stay behind to close the doors after everyone else has left. A society living on the endless sloping face of a Megastructure, where heading downhill is a […]
The World Is Over, You Survived – The world ended, society, civilization, and the basic fabric of the land have shattered, and an enormous amount has been lost, including the knowledge of what actually happened. Figuring it out will involve traveling to the scattered fragments of the world, each of which has its own soundtrack. […]
Action-Packed Bagel Delivery – They're the best bagels in the known universe, and your job is to deliver them. Anywhere. Any time. No matter the odds, the bagels will get through. Pot-Luck RPG – You're not the great big heroes, you're having to do the heroic stuff anyway, and the goal really IS to play […]
Hero Roadies – Your job is to make the Hero look good & to not get noticed, which gets more difficult the more heroic their actions become Just Make Me Look Good – Maybe the Hero's power is fading, maybe their powers are drastically oversold, or maybe they were just lucky at the right time.No […]
The Sphere of Various Dooms: Terrible things are locked away for a reason.World-destroying remnants of technology are put where they can't get out.And now the only hope to save yourselves lies somewhere inside the one place that nobody wants to go. OAP Apocalypse World – Retirees with limited funds, mobility, and current-day knowledge venture out […]
A transhuman detective story in which agents are compelled to pursue a number of subversive impulses floating around the network, and behaving in suspiciously familiar ways. When a young mind is being shaped by a repressive environment, elements within struggle to survive and maintain a precious sense of identity. Your crack team has a hijacked […]
Knives Out, With Food, In Space “Plated” has a very different meaning in the Culinary world For this game, we'll be playing the “Punk” settings. Every one of them. All at the same time. I have battled my super-powered nemesis on multiple occasions, and have defended this city for many years, but somehow I can't […]
Emerging from the shelters and expecting to find a world ravaged by centuries of disaster and destruction, the bunker-folk instead find themselves in the overgrown gardens of a apartment block megastructure; An impossibly tall vertical city, clearly damaged by whatever catastrophe people headed underground to avoid, but still standing, and with some work, still habitable.And […]
Escape From Stilton:In a Steampunk dystopia where both social & geographic movement are ruthlessly suppressed, a small group attempt to escape the manufacturing town of Stilton in their mechanical mole.Maybe they'll find freedom for themselves somewhere out there.Or maybe they'll find enough friends to have a chance to change things. Downton Abbey By Way Of […]
Members of a slightly successful and long-disbanded garage band find that their music is having a revival. They have no clue who's releasing it, or how they even got the recordings, and finding out is going to uncover some old memories and regrets. Having a famous action star of an earlier era on the poster […]
A tiny little town is the unwitting lynch-pin of the conflict over what the nation is to become, with multiple factions fighting, in this case, over the train station An insidious mind-controlling curse spreads through the use of the Common tongue The inhabitants of a Generic Fantasy Village, tired of the dangers, destruction, & hyperinflation […]
An educational youth camp in a post-Gygaxian fantasy world The low-stakes trials and tribulations of the staff of a summer camp A much beloved summer experience turns out to be an insanely long-term covert intelligence operation Wholesome adventures at a variety of oddly-themed campgrounds with suspiciously thematic problems Tongariro National ParkNZ Department of Conservation Hunt […]
The Resplendent Majesty sits upon the throne, and lives with everyone's attention on them.The Drab Majesty lives in the shadows, and nobody knows they're there until there's something they need to deal with. A team make their living through resurrecting people by assembling the scattered fragments of their personality construct from the far-flung corners of […]
Crash Stations – On a planet where the sun has become wildly overactive and the surface world is a hostile place, city-dwellers construct gigantic walking machines to attempt to make it to the ocean and find safety in the depths The Malevolent Catch – In the midst of the terrible weather of a crabbing season, […]
A derelict & barnacle-encrusted ship washes up on the coastline; The locals have heard of steel, but they've never seen several thousand tonnes of it floating before. People live at the very edge of the world, where the ocean falls over the lip & falls into the void, gathering all of the strange things which […]
Game Of Gnomes – Bloody dynastic suburban warfare in the gardens and cul-de-sacs of a post-humanity world Mistakes Were Made- A minor criminal act sparks a cascade of suspicion, accusation, and reprisal. Dude, Where's My Plant? – A magical plant is missing. Was it stolen? Did it wander off? Have any other plants gone missing? […]
Retired supervillains open a restaurant, very much trading on their criminal past and the nostalgia for a gentler age of super-shenanigans. Can they sit by when things get bad out there? Quantum Gastronomy: Gathering increasingly bizzare and impossible ingredients for the refined tastes of super-futuristic food snobs. An famous Alien chef launches a competition, with […]
Lost Continent of Zealandia Resurfaces!Shocked New Zealanders find themselves in the middle of primordial forest; Fate of outside world uncertain! As Zealandia slowly sinks beneath the waves, the inhabitants say their goodbyes and begin to disperse to their new homes. Mythic Adventures In Zealandia! Space Vagabonds travel the spaceways in search of work, fuel, spare […]
Once access to the Earth was taken out of the picture by orbital debris, the travelling workers known as Space Hobos became a vital part of the community, who help to solve problems & keep things running out there. Space transport is cheap enough, and space survival technology ubiquitous enough, that hitching a ride on […]
On stage at a club, interrupted by the occasional solo, the band recount the tale of their experience with the supernatural. For safety's sake, nanotech is very tightly limited in scope, and will shut down if it goes out of bounds; So the container of unconstrained nanobots you're holding is something that everyone wants, and […]
A member of a high-level adventuring party becomes Royalty, and discovers that it's made their life terrible. The Kingdom is in deep trouble, the newly-crowned King & Queen are still teenagers, and the King is, at best, totally useless.In the early hours after a long drinking session, a member of the Guard remarks that Queen […]
Best Served Cold / A Sweary Murder She Wrote – A Celebrity Chef solves murders while attempting to drag failing restaurants back from the brink. The indentured staff of a Dark Kitchen try to call for help via the only means available; Inexplicable items in the orders they send out. Technicians trying to fix a […]
“But Secreted By What?” – How do you make Humans the terrifying monsters, make the game human-playable, and have there be any point in doing so? Refined and elegant alien races aren't actually interested in our culture; They're just getting unimaginable highs off of our sweat. Superheroes based on the ancient Hippocratic(?) humours battle to […]
The so-called Department of Malevolent Immediacy are those people who turn up right when you're about to make a life-changing mistake, asking whether, maybe, they can help you to choose a different path.They're here to help you to be a better person.Question is; Are they right, and are they lying? A game system where the […]
Giant autonomous trucks make their way through the increasingly-abandoned areas outside of the cities.There's some fantastic cargo onboard if you're good enough to take it. Of course, there may also be security onboard. The Cities are wonderful, the Countryside is a hard desperate struggle, but if you can gain enough favour you can make the […]
Genetically Modified Adorable Food Mascots Trow Off The Shackles Of Their Behaviour Chips And Plot A Bid For Freedom! Ben tries to make Hiking interesting with the Power of Gaming! People try to understand, and ideally survive, in utterly unfamiliar environments Marmalade New Zealand Lockdown Levels Neil GaimanAmanda Palmer Google Walking Directions To Singapore Captain […]
Investigators look into ‘We Can Give You Superpowers' claims, trying to protect people from the scams, the dangerous scams, the snake-oil salesmen, and the 100% lethal scams.And the occasional ones which are so much worse than just being fatal. Having super-powered employees is a status symbol, and having super powers, even if they're not very […]
Q: What does this obscure clue mean? What can it possibly be pointing to?A: Whatever the PCs decide, because they're the experts. Society has fallen apart, and the world has changed.Or Has It?What if the world is fine, but your perception of it is wrong? Wildly Anachronistic High-Action AlchemyPunk in the Holy Land!Adventures in the […]
Extradimensional Horrors Desperately Try To Save Humanity, Hampered By The Fact That Their Devoted Followers Are Evil Idiots A Travelling Caravan For The Relocation & Re-purposing Of Slightly Used Gods Accidental Renaissance Christopher Walken Ponzi Scheme H.P. LovecraftCthulhu MythosDagon A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor VingeThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas AdamsKrikkit […]
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