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.
https://hoarde.net/bigredcouch
Episode One Hundred And Eighteen – The Winter of our Discotheque
Genre-themed Librarians battle the forces of evil. Quietly.
A venue shared between the Summer & Winter Courts of Faerie transitions from a generations-long reign of summer into an unexpected winter primacy.
A nightclub which serves as a refuge from the dark.
Plucky clubbers work together to save their beloved nightclub, without 100% understanding the backstory as to why it’s being sold.
Strange happenings at the all-ages venue need to be investigated, even though that place is totally lame. Also, that super-hot new kid might be there.
Is there a space for a Meddling Kids vs. Criminals game where harming the kids is simply not done, and the surprisingly ethical mobsters instead use social pressures to keep the little brats in line?
Richard III in the 70’s
Auckland Zoo
Hadrian’s Wall
Discotheque
Episode 117 – Sailor Noir
Takapuna
Wellington
The Walking Dead (comic)
Crossed (comic)
Read Or Die
Magic ex Libris series, by Jim C. Hines
L-Space
ReBoot (tv)
Changeling: The Dreaming
The Dresden Files RPG
Game of Thrones
Detroit
Ray Bradbury
The Terminator
Apocalypse World
Farnham’s Freehold, by Robert Heinlein
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
Jimmy Hoffa
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
The Goonies
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Joe’s Apartment
Kids On Bikes
Secret Valley
Richard III (Ian McKellen movie)
Richard III
Richard Nixon
Kinky Friedman
QAGS
Funkadelic Frankenstein on the Mean Streets of Monstertown
Arlo Guthrie
Episode 114 – Die Farben
The Xi Effect