Big Red Couch Podcast - Turning Bad Ideas Into Games

[Pruthian Caveman]

Playing the moral dilemma game for Volcano Day...
1. What if your only usable skill is as a breeder?
2. "So, you saved me, but not my spouse because they survived?
This 'archaic' pistol will blow great big holes in you unless you
get them or send me back."

This is why I could never do the Big Red Couch as a one person show - I would never have come up with flipping the viewpoint on my idea, and it made it so much better

For #1, that just opens up a whirlpool of horrors, especially if the folks running the show are unpleasant enough to not really view the folks they've saved as being people, but more ... human resources. After all, it's the fate of humanity at stake, and they're clearly the good guys here.
"This one's in excellent condition for the population increase division, but the husband? ... Yeah, lots of stuff in that genome we don't need. Better separate them; Do we have an accelerated fertilisation/gestation/weaning schedule worked out?"

[Pruthian Caveman]

Episode One Hundred And Thirteen – Never Go Full-Force On An Éclair, Son



A rowdy bunch of biker mice, looking to make their bones pulling off a big score, are about to learn a lesson about hubris.

The mentor of an impetuous adventure attempts to tease out the story of how their student has most recently misapplied their patient instruction.

Further ruminations of why pillaging the people of the past for “good stock” is morally, and existentially, perilous.

Trapped in time-loop that resets upon death, formerly cautious chrononauts resort to more and more desperate strategies, trying to dodge their own previous iterations.

[zircher]

For the TPK game, I'm going to shamelessly plug my time looping RPG, Rewind. It's a freebie on DriveThruRPG.
http://drivethrurpg.com/product/180407/Rewind-Temporal-Tales

It uses a set of indexed note cards to build the branching time map. For the Rewind event, go with the death of the last team member to revive the whole party. The advantage to the time map is that you can always fast forward to the point where you want to branch out and start there.
--
TAZ

[Pruthian Caveman]

Episode One Hundred And Fourteen – DIE FARBEN!



People and objects changing from greyscale to colour is a wonderful way to depict change, be it in aspects of the world, or in the world you inhabit. But from the point of view of someone who’s accustomed to a greyscale world, it’d look uncannily, possibly horrifically, wrong.

Colour has been leeched from the world by Our Oppressive Grey Overlords, but a few members of the resistance hold objects which have retained their colour, and wield powers based upon that colour. Of course, once they’ve wielded their powers, the colour sticks around, so it’s pretty hard to be stealthy about it.

[zircher]

The first thing that popped into my mind was using Psi*Run where our PCs are lab rats that have been experimented on. Due to mad science, they can see one color each that don't exist; magnetic fields, truth, lust, luck, etc. As the game progresses they go from just seeing their chosen color to being able to manipulate it. I'd also include a crazed German hunter that is chasing them. At some point he has to inject ALL THE DRUGS so that he can be more powerful than the PCs, and he will (of course) scream, "DIE FARBEN!"
--

Wait, is the prompt for next time 'for the love of god' or 'the haunted world of el beasto'?
--
TAZ

[Pruthian Caveman]

Wait, is the prompt for next time 'for the love of god' or 'the haunted world of el beasto'?

You may have given me another idea for this one.
A terrible idea.

[zircher]

Woot! Helping!

[Pruthian Caveman]

Episode One Hundred And Fifteen – The Haunted World of El Superbeasto



Masked grapplers travel between isolated settlements, their performance thrilling the crowds and providing a sense of safety and justice. In the wastes between, they live the battles in truth.

The monsters hide their faces to pass among us. Are their intentions ill, or have the evils they have fought warped them in turn?

The subjects of unsanctioned experiments escape with the aid of newly expanded senses. But their pursuer has access to the same treatments they have, and no fear of using them.

A monster hunts the citizens of an isolated town – but is very particular about how it strikes. What does it know that the town doesn’t?

Riding the rails for free always has it’s risks, but one railway bull is feared beyond all others.

[zircher]

You had forgotten to include the M. Night Shyamalan twist! In the last scene of the session, as the PCs celebrate their victory, pan to the gates of the city where the PCs are just arriving.

[Pruthian Caveman]

You had forgotten to include the M. Night Shyamalan twist! In the last scene of the session, as the PCs celebrate their victory, pan to the gates of the city where the PCs are just arriving.

Very nice!

If you went 'possibly un-aware construct' instead of "doppelganger", you could have some fun with situations where even the players don't know whether they're the real one or not.