A system-less RPG scenario is designed to be able to run in any system for a particular genre. Writing one is just as challenging as writing one for a single system. I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit for The Night Clerk, a system-less modern horror scenario, as a zine. In this episode, Caleb Stokes, author of No Security a collection of system-less scenarios, and I talk about them. I also go a bit into using Backerkit as a creator. We also discuss architectural horror and what that term means.

Sign up on the Backerkit pre-launch page to receive notification when the project goes live. It should start in early September!

Check out Hebanon Games Open Design for more info on Red Markets Second Edition!

I talked with Greg Stolze, author of Reign, Termination Shock, co-author of Unknown Armies, and writer on many other books (and my co-host on Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast) about his new Kickstarter for Ships, a supplement for Termination Shock. We talked about the core mechanics for Termination Shock, game design, and crowd funding RPGs.

Back Ships: How to Build and Blast Them on Kickstarter now! Greg has his own Termination Shock actual play podcast, if you want to hear how the game plays.

I’ll be recording RPPR After Hours with Greg for the RPPR Patreon soon.

Caleb is back discussing his progress on Red Markets. After a recent gaming retreat, Caleb developed a theory he wanted to discuss in this episode, about the obscene and the scene. The scene represents the public, socially acceptable aspects of a given object or activity. The obscene refers to the hidden, taboo aspects. In RPGs, the scene is what we say about our games but the obscene is how we actually engage with them. “I hate this game. I’ve run a hundred sessions of it.” There’s the promised version of a game during its Kickstarter campaign, the version delivered, and the version actually played. We discuss these weighty topics and how it is affecting the development of Red Markets.

Check out Hebanon Open Game Design to keep track of Red Markets development!