You may have noticed an entry for a certain couch on the ENnies Submission list. (Hint: We’re way down the bottom under ‘Podcasts.’) We filled out the form last weekend and have been studying our site stats for signs of largesse from the fine folks over there, or jealous attention from our fellow competitors. This is made more difficult by the fact that our site stats never made a lick of sense at the best of times.

In all honesty, the competition looks like a bunch of awesomeness and it’ll be an honor if we get anywhere near being nominated.

In other news, we’ve been tweeking and tidying all over the site and in the background of the show for a while now. So, this is what we’ve been doing and why.

The enormous buffer is there so that Tonya can go on a three week Pain Management course in March/April without having to worry that the Big Red Couch will be sending out cricket noises and tumbleweeds over that time. It’s been a lot of work and everyone has pitched in on the sound editing to make this possible.

This has triggered many conversations about the amount of work that goes in behind the scenes and how we can make it more sustainable. Many of the Couchers have some big life changes coming up, (nothing bad, I assure you,) which means we need to figure out ways of giving you the best listening experience we can in a more sensible number of hours.

We are very grateful to everyone who helped and everyone who continues to make this podcast worthwhile by tuning in every once in a while.

As always, we like hearing from you guys, so if you have any feedback, comments, rants, game ideas or just want to say hi, you can email us at BigRedCouch(at)hoarde(dot)net.

Hello Audient!
We at the Big Red Couch have been having chats about making things a bit better around here. We have decided that our buffer needs to be a bit bigger, but that we can do that in such a way as it make it easier for you to see what’s coming up and where we are up to in the editing process.

So here’s what’s happening. Sometime soon the Coming Up On The Big Red Couch page will sprout not only a bunch of new cards, but also some bookends. These will tell you important things like:-

-Which shows have been recorded and edited, (so any responses you have will probably end up in bonus episodes,)

-Which are in the process of editing, (so any responses you have might be able to be spliced in if you hurry, or else bonus pile.)

-And which are merely wobbling around in our heads like newly hatched quadrapeds, (so any responses you have can be added in and responded to as part of the show.)

You will still have the option of sending us stuff in text or mp3, or just slapping stuff into the comments.

Wish us luck for the upcoming Drawapolooza!

{Edit: because I forgot he was going to do this until I saw him doing it,)
Because it is very nearly a whole new year, Craig is making us an Archive. That means you won’t have to click the Back button quite so much if you happen to want to listen to our very early shows again (or read the associated show notes) because it will be it’s very own tab thingee in the sidebar.  Although you can do it the hard way if you want. That’s cool too.

The kindly folks of The Gutter Skypes invited us to playtest a Fiasco scenario with them, and Tonya and Kev were able to attend.

If anyone is interested in hearing us play an Actual Game with real live humans (rather than Craig and Ben, though that just raises more questions…) the show is Session 127 available here.

Mark Kinney from All Games Considered was our guide and native-bearer for Fiasco, which was particularly relevant given we’d never played the game before and Kev in particular had No Clue.  (You can tell.)  Anim, Nikki, and Andros from The Gutter Skypes leant their talents to the escapades, and Fun Was Had.

Hi everybody!

Some more changes have gone live, with more to come over the next few weeks.

Our Game Resources page has updated with some new content, including more characters adapted into Fate Accelerated Edition, some characters adapted to Fate Core from FAE as a comparison, and some archived transcripts of play.

We also have a new hub page for RPG reviews. The plan is to migrate reviews done years ago for other sites onto this page, while also creating new reviews for newer games.  We have a new review of Fate Accelerated Edition up now, along with comparative reviews of both the One Roll Engine and Strange Fate editions of The Kerberos Club from a few years ago.  More reviews will appear as we go.

As ever, any responses or feedback will be greatly appreciated!

– Kev.

The answer to that question is: All Right-Thinking People.

The folks at Bundle of Holding have figured that out and want to help: their current bundle collects a huge amount of the Unknown Armies game line, and will likely add more before the sale closes in slightly-less-than-70-hours (less than 3 days) from the time this post goes live.

You get both the Core book and the One Shots collection of modules, which includes the infamous “Jailbreak” scenario that everyone should experience once, along with a bunch of other goodies.

If you also participated in the earlier Fate-themed Bundle of Holding, you’ll have The Kerberos Club.  That means if you get in on this bundle, you have everything you need to use the BRC’s adaptation of “Jailbreak” into Strange Fate.

You know.  Hypothetically speaking.

Hi folks!  The good people at Arc Dream publications are having a sweeping 30% off sale at the moment, and since we discuss a lot of their stuff in the podcast where relevant, we thought you might want to know. Here’s the link.

The sale includes all One Roll Engine products (Barring Better Angels which is in preorder), together with the FATE and Savage Worlds ends of the spectrum.  Plus, all products are available print+pdf from what I can see.

This means that the series on sale include:
The Kerberos Club (Strange FATE, Savage Worlds and One Roll Engine flavours available)
Monsters and Other Childish Things
Wild Talents (including the fantastically ambitious and well-done Progenitor)
A Dirty World
GODLIKE
eCollapse
And other sundries.

My particular favourites would be The Kerberos Club (Strange FATE edition), Monsters and Other Childish Things, and Progenitor, though Progenitor requires the Wild Talents system to run.  Fortunately there is Wild Talents: Essential Edition which is normally available for something like $10 USD, and hey, 30% off sale.

But pretty much everything there is worth a look.

– Kev.

Hi everybody!

As part of playing around with learning new systems, we at the Big Red Couch build experimental characters, and put together other stuff that we find useful.  We’ve put up a new page called Gaming Resources where we’re going to archive that kind of material, just in case it’s useful to anyone else as well.

Currently it has character sheets for Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE), featuring such characters as Veronica Mars, Dexter Morgan, Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, and the Mane 6 protagonists from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

We’ll add to it as new things are developed, and if anyone wants to ask questions or make suggestions about how the characters work or how we’ve built them, that’d be a conversation we’d love to have.

Hell, if we get time, we might even take requests!

– Kev.

We had a query from a friend this week asking if we minded her using an idea she thought she’d gotten from us. (She hadn’t, and we’d kinda like to steal the idea she mentioned for our own nefarious porpoises.)

So here’s a general clarification:

We have more ideas than we can use.

We want you to have them.

We’d like it if you dropped us a line to tell us how things went, at which point we will probably say, “Dude, That’s Awesome!” but it’s not a deal-breaker.

Take care and watch out for them porpoises,

Tonya

Eagle-eyed users of the site will notice some changes in the way things work; there are also some visual cues to inform our Reader about the current state of the podcast.

All part of our Serious Commitment to you.  Yes, you.

You’re welcome.

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.

We plan for a fortnightly-ish release schedule for the podcast.

If you want to contribute yourselves and see how the denizens of the Big Red Couch handle concepts that appeal to you, feel free to add your own sticky nuggets of creativity to The Mystery Box. (I Have An Idea!)

We’re new to podcasting and so you will see changes to the site and format as we ourselves evolve, along with (hopefully) ongoing improvements to quality.

Correspondingly, feedback and suggestions from our Audient are always welcome. (I Have An Opinion!)