Red Right Hand - horror, the sixties and it's all free

Kemper Boyd · Post by **Kemper Boyd** » Thu May 03, 2012 12:51 pm

Hello TGD, I thought I'd show up to tell you about the side project I'm working on.

It's called Red Right Hand, and it's a game set in the sixties. More than that, the core concept is that the US military has for a long time studied the unnatural and the paranormal, found out that it doesn't have much use for it, but there's still occasionally a need to chase down a murderous ghost, a serial killer with supernatural powers or to hunt monsters in the Pine Barrens.

You can play a military officer, a psychic or a wizard. You can have various backgrounds, psychic powers and so on. That's the basic gist of it.

Warning for uncouth language. Also warning for bad editing, grammatical errors and no art, because this is merely version 0.2 so it's not up to commercial release standards yet. Playtesting is ongoing, rules get tweaked still, so there's balance issues.

You can download the pdf from here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40656863/Red%20 ... nd%202.pdf

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu May 03, 2012 3:18 pm

so its basically X-files set in 1960's tech level?

Kemper Boyd · Post by **Kemper Boyd** » Thu May 03, 2012 5:17 pm

shadzar wrote:so its basically X-files set in 1960's tech level?

Not exactly. X-files had the whole thing going on with conspiracies, aliens and such, which RRH doesn't have. Conspiracies are cliché by now, so thought I'd avoid that.

There's also a difference in scope. RRH is about people dealing with unnatural and terrible things as their day job. There's no existential threat to humanity present, it's all about individuals pushing themselves to make the world a bit safer for everyone else.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu May 03, 2012 5:27 pm

So, kinda like Hellboy then?

Kemper Boyd · Post by **Kemper Boyd** » Thu May 03, 2012 6:17 pm

Stahlseele wrote:So, kinda like Hellboy then?

I guess you could say that! I'm not a big fan of the comics myself but I did enjoy the first movie.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu May 03, 2012 6:23 pm

ah. i avoided the BPRD concept form Hellboy due to this portion:

has for a long time studied the unnatural and the paranormal, found out that it doesn't have much use for it

and the BRPD USED it extensively.

wish i could read the PDF to se, but right now without PDF capabilities.

could be a good game though, definitely a fun concept, so i will vote it good or like based on the connection to theme.

Kemper Boyd · Post by **Kemper Boyd** » Thu May 03, 2012 7:53 pm

shadzar wrote:ah. i avoided the BPRD concept form Hellboy due to this portion:

has for a long time studied the unnatural and the paranormal, found out that it doesn't have much use for it
and the BRPD USED it extensively.

The thing I'm going for with RRH is that as in real-life history (the CIA and the Soviets both did it), ESP and supernatural abilities were fairly extensively studied for military and intelligence use.

In the real world, the results were what you'd expect.

In the world of RRH, the US government knows that magic exists and employs people who use it, same goes for psychic Talents. However, the abilities those people have are limited enough that there's no wide-scale application. Why study a spell to kill someone, if it takes years to learn magic, if you can just get a gun instead?

At the same time, projects to try to use those abilities as a weapon have failed catastrophically, so there's no interest in pursuing that angle.

The Department of Special Acquisitions instead uses the wizards and Talents it has as field investigators, because they tend to be useful when exploring hauntings or chasing a spirit-possessed serial killer.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Fri May 04, 2012 5:52 pm

So, i read the document, and like the game. Seems like wizards will be master assassins: edge ritual + death spell kills any known dude out to line of sight; the wizard could be on a sky scraper with a telescope and take out a target miles away while they were outside giving a public speech, walking the dog, or playing with their kids. That is ext

Kemper Boyd · Post by **Kemper Boyd** » Sat May 05, 2012 3:50 pm

The Death spell is way overpowered in the current version, since at the moment there's no real downside to using it, it's going to get revised for version 0.3, along with the rest of the spells.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 4:25 am

I ran into the PDF for this when I was going through my files looking for something else, and I ended up reading through the whole thing again. I really like the setting, it does modern magic in a way I haven't seen in other games.

I originally ran into Red Right Hand on SA, but I don't think there's a dedicated thread for it there. Just wanted to say thanks for an interesting game.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 5:03 am

So that introduction mentions that his main project is Lions of the North and man, could that name get any more bland?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:16 am

Some kind of postapocalyptic fantasy thing. There was a kickstarter, but it failed. That one never really caught my interest.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Mon Aug 12, 2013 3:15 pm

Hmm, this could be fun for a Milkweed Triptych game.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 7:30 pm

Downloaded it, I'll give you my thoughts if I get a chance to actually read it.

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Red Right Hand - horror, the sixties and it's all free

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Red Right Hand - horror, the sixties and it's all free