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 Thirty Five – Things Are Going Down At Disney Town
The AI cast members at the theme park became a vital part of the experience; A wild assortment of characters you could talk to who would always remember your name and were always happy to see you.
Then things fell apart, and the people stopped coming, and the cast members found themselves without anything to do.
So they went out to find out where the guests had gone.
Rather than put people in unconvincing suits, the Theme Park uses modified people, but for everyone who is convincing enough to be a star, there are many who just don’t make the grade. They can get some work, but they’ll never break out of the Park Ghetto of the not-quite-right.
Now that one of them has gone rogue and is committing unspeakable crimes in their shanty town, it’s up to a “goofy-looking” PI to find them and stop them.
“Camp”, by Faraz Shanyar
Faraz Shanyar’s Artstation Portfolio
Hot blob: vast patch of warm water off New Zealand coast puzzles scientists
Pelagic
Calypso Music
Mulling / Mulled Cider
Asimov’s Three Laws Of Robotics
Gaston
Wreck-It Ralph
Disneyland Park (originally Disneyland)
Walt Disney World
Westworld
Ellen Ripley
Lord Humungus
Immortan Joe
Mad Max Franchise
Defunctland (youtube)
Abandoned Mister Blobby Amusement Park
Footrot Flats
Footrot Flats: The Dogs Tale Tail
( I couldn’t find much of anything on the now-defunct Footrot Flats Leisure Park. Seems it only lasted a few years, got rebranded, and died. Here’s the best thing I could find. ~ T. Jones )
Rainbow’s End
Disneyland Paris
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Avatar (James Cameron/Giant Smurf)
Spirited Away
Bats Day
Kingdom Hearts
Vanellope Von Schweetz
Captain Jack Sparrow
Toy Story Franchise
Mad Max: Fury Road
Little Robots, Big World – The Gutter Skypes
This was a multi-episode game run by Trilobite; Links to the MP3 for the episodes as follows ~ T. Jones
190
191
193
195
The Brave Little Toaster
There Will Come Soft Rains, by Ray Bradbury
Zack Snyder
Justice League
The Snyder Cut
Blade Runner
Goofy
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Bill Watterson
Calvin & Hobbes
Berke Breathed
Bloom County
Underground RPG
Buck’s Fizz (drink)
Bucks Fizz (band)
The Witcher (TV)
Cool World
Blacksad (comic)
Donald Duck
The Dresden Files
French Foreign Legion
The Crow
Dark City
Walt Disney
Tank Riot (podcast) and their Walt Disney episode.
(Regarding the “crude graffiti”, there is a story from Walt’s youth (recounted above at 20:55) which often involves mentions of corporal punishment. The Tank Riot crew briefly infer that it was subject rather than the permanence of the medium that inspired his fathers wrath. And then they repeated it as a running gag for the following decade. They are a true inspiration. ~ T. Jones)
Jacinda Ardern
John Key and “that photo.”