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 Forty Eight – Space Hobboes
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 a string of cargo containers going somewhere useful is a viable, if unauthorised & illegal, way to get around if you don’t have the money.
It also means that you’re in a place that nobody expects someone to be, and that can cause problems if folks are up to things they don’t want people to see.
Once you’ve shifted some asteroids into regular orbits, moving around the system becomes a whole lot easier; Assuming you can match vector, or course.
A fantasy setting of little worldlets, each just big enough for a single field or Hobbit burrow, floating serenely in an endless sky.
Vast cargo ships ply the spaceways. Too big for anything other than full automation, they don’t seem to react when people climb aboard for free transport, or even make their homes there. It’s not clear whether they don’t notice, or they just don’t care.
Norovirus
Coal Trimmer
Hooverville
Herbert Hoover
The Expanse (novels)
The Expanse (tv)
Game of Thrones (tv)
Raised By Wolves (tv)
Ridley Scott
T-Pose
Dark Souls
International Brotherhood Welfare Association
The Hobo Code
The Littlest Hobo
The Incredible Hulk
Dogs In The Vinyard
Flatpack: Fix the Future
Alias Smith & Jones
Pale Rider
Flash Gordon
Taken
The Love Boat
Among Us
Traveller 2300
Space Opera
Science Fantasy
Transhumanism
Hobomancer
Alien
Aliens
Isaac Asimov
Planetes
Kessler Syndrome
Railroad Bull
( covered as part of a longer article on Railroad police ~ T. Jones )
Aldrin Cycler
Skyhook
Lensman Series, by E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith
Project Pluto
Hobbit
Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple
The Little Prince
Yes (band)
The Integral Trees, by Larry Niven
Spelljammer
Starfinder
Starship Titanic
Goldenwing Cycle, by Alfred Coppel
Moonheart & Spiritwalk, by Charles de Lint
Counting to Infinity ( rpg.net thread from 2006 )
Girls Last Tour
Kids Last Tour
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Torg
West End Games
Episode One Hundred And Forty Seven – From Me To You; A Free Gift Of Soul Dust