# RED *Created:* 2026-11-05, *Modified:* 2026-11-05 ![[RED (cover).jpg|600]] ## Setting **RED** does not come with a setting, and says so: it is a generic system that will run a one-shot mystery or a full campaign in whatever genre and setting the table wants, and the publisher is explicit that it sits outside the [[Wretchedverse]] continuity — it adapts the Wretched mechanics and then drops the anti-hero premise, leaving heroes as playable as villains. What it does come with is a house style, announced by the comic-book vignette that opens the book — Captain Ginger Sweet of the Space Knights, her cybernetics and her war against the Red Alien Alliance — and sustained by the line's taste for exploitation cinema, pulp science fiction and gore. The book teaches genre by pastiche rather than by example: chapters open with vignettes written straight, so a psychic investigation and a dieselpunk war arrive in the same voice. The opening one is a space-opera serial — Captain Ginger Sweet of the Space Knights, her cybernetic upgrades and her war on the Red Alien Alliance — and the magic chapter starts with Empress Vanya Isenberg on Clockwork, grinding a thousand worlds into raw materials while the Sparkwrights and their Scavenge Spacers try to throw a wrench in the works. The vignettes run through the whole book and they are where its humour lives — a starship piece about control chairs that acquire personalities from their operators, and the "cybercephalic rapture" that comes of using one too long. The tools it ships lean horror: ritual magic, psychics, mesmerism, alchemy and fringe science are all character options, fear and panic have their own chapter, and the bestiary is a set of adversaries rather than a mythology. Set it in the present and it is an occult game; set it in space and the same rules carry. ## Mechanics ### The Wretched chassis, minus the levels **RED** keeps the [[Wretched RPG]] engine and removes most of what slowed it down. Attributes are the same six on the same 3d6 spread, and skills are rated from untrained to specialized, resolved with 1d20 + skill level + attribute modifier against a Target Number the GM sets. What goes is the class structure: no occupations and no levels, only archetypes, with experience points spent directly on skills, then attributes, perks and the buying-off of drawbacks. Combat runs on the same roll against a Defense of 10 + Agility, unarmed strikes do 1 point plus the Strength modifier, and a stunning hit is resolved by rolling 1d20 and subtracting Toughness, stunning on 1 or higher. ### The Path of Sin and Virtue The alignment mechanic is the game's signature. Each character starts at zero on a path that runs from −30 to +30, and choices move the score: deals with dark powers −3, harmful magic −2, murder or torture −3, theft from innocents −1, breaking a sworn vow −2; resisting temptation +2, mercy or self-sacrifice +1 to +3, spreading hope +1, consecrating a place +2. Positive scores are resistance to the world's corruption, negative ones a descent into it, and the score is meant to be read over a campaign rather than cashed in scene by scene. ### Magic, mesmerism and the rest Magic is not one system. **Ritual Magic** is the core of it: conjurers invoke with utterances, symbols and will, and the ritual check bends to preparation (+2 to +3 for taking the time, −2 to −6 for rushing), tools (+1 consecrated, −2 unconsecrated, −3 for none) and the conjurer's standing with whatever is being invoked (+2 in good graces, −2 out of grace). Groups use the cooperation rules, and rites that bargain with an entity are contested Wits rolls against it. The worst rites want blood, human for preference. **Mesmerism** is its own art: 1d20 + Charisma modifier + Mesmerism skill (or Occult: Mesmerism) against a target number, with the subject resisting on Wits. Induce Trance is TN 15 for a willing subject and 20 for an unwilling one; Suggestion requires the trance first; the Iron Will perk makes a character immune to the whole thing. **Chaos Magic**, **Alchemy**, **Psychic Talents** and **Fringe Science** follow in their own chapters, each a separate skill rather than a shared spell list. Fear and panic sit alongside them, so a character can be formidable and still come apart in a dark room. ### A statted bestiary, unlike its parent Where the Wretched core hands the GM a monster generator, **RED** prints the monsters: alligators and ape herds, baboons and bats, each with Strength, Toughness, Agility, Defense, Health, Move, Resolve, skills and damage, followed by cryptids, ordinary humans and the supernatural. It is a real difference in how the two games expect a referee to work — the core builds, **RED** looks it up. ## Editions - **RED (v1.4)** (212 pp, 2024) — the first release of the streamlined system, with art by Rob Necronomicon, Jeremy Hart and Warghoul. *In the library.* - **RED RPG Revised** (275 pp) — the current edition, rewritten and expanded with Mark Brooks as additional writer and Jae Tanaka on the cover. *In the library.* ## References - [RED at The Red Room](https://moordereht.com/product/red-role-playing-game/) - [The Red Room's store and blog](https://moordereht.com/) - [The Red Room on itch.io](https://moordereht.itch.io/)