Courting Controversy: The Red Room Overview pt. 1

How The Red Room Leaned Into Horror Regardless of Genre And Became The Boogeyman From The Beyond.

We’re just gonna jump right into it. For the record, Miguel hates the fuck out of the cover for the O.G. Wretched Bastards but that’s where this is starting. Again, all of these photos are of physical books. I’m here to give you a review and overview of the universe that we’ve all lovingly called The Wretchedverse.

First, what is The Wretchedverse? I’m glad you asked. The Wretchedverse is a series of games where alignment is tossed out the window almost entirely. You know how a subsection of the hobby has been screaming and crying and whining about the alignment chart “lacking nuance?” Yep…The Wretchedverse did away with it. Instead you pick one of the Seven Deadly Sins (Lust, Avarice, Wrath, Gluttony, Vanity, Sloth and Envy) and that becomes the flaw that defines your character. It’s based on a Basic/Expert D&D Rule Set so you create characters similar to that of B/X D&D but …they’re shitty people…as characters. So your barbarian could have the sin of Gluttony and, though strong, perhaps Goroth, The Barbarian just can’t pass up a good tankard of strong drink. If he finds a barrel of Dwarven Spirits in the dungeon, the player can roll a check to see if they effectively resist the entire point of their sin or the roll can be foregone and then the player can be awarded extra experience points for their character while fucking over the entire party in the process. Yep, that’s a thing.

Conversely, Darhan, the thief’s sin of Avarice can be both a boost and a hinderance to the group. The boost is that Darhan can be determined to get the horde, the hinderance is that he’s so avaricious that he steals from everyone else’s cut little by little and then makes his exit before anyone notices that he has been merciful enough to split before the heat was on or he splits after leaving everyone destitute. That would completely depend on the player. Playing a group that are not comprised of heroic people and are complete scoundrels sounds like fun to me, I don’t know about you.

The rest of the books in the photo are adventures specifically for the core book itself and these are not big books. They’re all available in Print on Demand and PDF. The adventures are all, in some way a little strange in one way or another, all of them taking place in the world of Antilia and they’re violent, sleazy and they are unflinching. The Seven Bastards takes inspiration from Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai and has pregenerated characters so that you can jump right into the game itself. Orcs terrorize a town and only The Bastards can be counted upon to move forward and save it. What can ensue is one of the most comically-frustrating things to ever behold. Alternately, you can easily create your own party with the same dynamics and backstory in order to achieve the same end.

The Sound of Madness is one about orcs that have been coming down the mountains and raiding farms but now, there’s something different and far more brutal about the attacks. The question is…what’s causing that? Why are they more of a threat now than when they were? That’s what you have to find out.

Labia is one that became a source of controversy. A princess is under a curse due to a family feud and your Band of Bastards have to stop this curse and ensure that it never happens again. Contrary to it’s cover, it’s not just a string of Wicked City-level pussy references, it’s only the impetus for the dungeon crawl on which you and the Bastards embark but it’s one that got them a little strike on Drive-Thru RPG, if memory serves.

Finally, The Goat Lady draws inspiration from the movie Ladyhawke and an old Portugese Folk Tale of the Goat-Footed Lady as The Kingdom of Baetica, a country full of rude and superstitious people fear the Biscaya mountains. The Ruler of Biscaya, Lady Lydia Alvarez is seeking protection from her unruly subjects. What seems to be an easy job for The Bastards will become tricky once they figure out that an ancient evil has been unleashed in the mountains and it must be stopped before it’s too late.

Wretched Country is a bit different here because it is set in the days of The American Old West but this isn’t John Wayne or Gunsmoke, though it can be. This one focuses more on the Italian “spaghetti western” such as the Django movies or The Clint Eastwood Dollars Trilogy, High Plains Drifter or even movies such as Unforgiven, The Outlaw Josey Wales and even Pale Rider.

I want to focus on Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter because these movies were ultraviolent at times and had weird elements which is what this particular game is geared toward. Again, you get a character where you decide on a theme based on The Seven Deadly Sins which was very much a thing in High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider and make it very violent. This game is going to be full of six-shooters, bullwhips, stampedes, gunfights, drunken brawls, tales of vengeance, etc. This book even includes a weird-west adventure that you can use or simply use as an inspiration.

This is where The Wretchedverse hit it’s stride and found it’s voice. Wretched Epoque is set in The Belle Epoque in Europe (1871 - 1914) that ended around the time WWI started. In this particular time period you have anarchist bombings, The Dreyfus Affair, Secret Societies, conspiracies, mad geniuses conducting experiments and the premier of The Beyond which comes part and parcel of the secret societies operating in the shadows and the occult becoming en vogue again.

The Beyond is a setting which is the hellish realm of The Apostles of Pain, akin to the version of Hell and The Cenobytes from Hellraiser and, also, vampires are a thing, however these are more the horror-inspired vampires rather than those of Anne Rice or Poppy Z. Brite. In this one, what makes it differ from other Wretched offerings up to this point is that you can select the focus of your game set in that somewhat-fictionalized version of The Belle Epoque. While the world of Antilia is fleshed out in the adventures and The American West was comprised of many territories, this setting in Europe is one of the most interesting times. You can get wrapped up in political turmoil, uncovering conspiracies or even…finding The Beyond.

Wretched Epoque leans a bit more into horror than the previous two entries, however, you’ll see where this theme stretches into the rest of the work and becomes something of it’s own and you still have plenty of directions in which to take your game.

This. Is. One. Of. My. Absolute. Favorites.

Wretchploitation runs the entire spectrum from Grindhouse to Direct-To-Video 90s action movies. This is where the anti-hero (what you’ve been playing up until now) and the sleazy setting coalesce into something absolutely wonderful. This is the book where I wanted to tell Miguel and Silvia both “I already said yes to The Wretchedverse, you don’t have to sell me on it.” but I’m damn glad they did. This is the book that made me a superfan. If you liked Starsky & Hutch, Shaft, Foxy Brown, The Quentin Tarantino Movies, Class of 1999, etc, this is your book because now, your table will become the setting ripped straight from The Exploitation Film, a subgenre of movies that largely explored taboo subjects and violence that some deemed unsuitable for most audiences at that time. These movies didn’t make huge theatrical releases but they did make directors like Dario Argento nearly household names. This is about the cult classics and will tackle crime, horror and yes, even the spaghetti western. Either way, there will be blood.

Other types of films this covers are the blaxploitation, nunsploitation, revenge and even mystery genres in case you’re still coming out of a more investigative Wretched Epoque game and you need a smoother transition from one into another. Will you have to learn a new system? Nope, same B/X system with The Seven Deadly Sins as themes.

Before I moved on, I wanted to point out these titles that have been revised from their originals. Up on the top row, you have these books from Postmortem Studios which were written for the game Actual Fucking Monsters (actual title) and the bottom row were written with The Wretchedverse in mind. The yellow covers were more pulp-inspired games called The Giallo Series due to their yellow covers. There’s another one I have called Her Heart Was A Locked Room And Nobody Had The Key which was an adventure set in the Orpheum Lofts.

Orpheum Lofts is both the title and the setting, a building that was once updated for the affluent and wealthy with a convoluted history that now has gone to seed in the setting of urban decay. Unlike most Wretched or AFM Offerings, this one lends well to both one-shots or a longer campaign and there’s no pre-determined plot but only seeds and hooks. In short, it’s designed as a toolkit for you to flesh it all out yourself.

The Memorial is another scenario that takes place in the Ernest Spencer Memorial Hospital, a surreal institution that focuses on it’s psychiatric ward where bizarre people with troubled pasts deal with strange occurrences of a supernatural nature…and there are highly-illegal experiments happening to the patients. I wouldn’t recommend getting a colonoscopy there.

Finally, there’s The Sisters of The Seven Sins, which delves heavily into the Nunsploitation subgenre. In this one the setting is a Portuguese Convent with a dark past filled with a history of demonic possession, black magic and Devil Worship that, in the mid-70s, is occupied by a recently-founded religious organization made up of disgraced women who wish to atone for their past, The Reprobate Sisters of The Seven Sins. In this game, the player can take on the role of one of the Sisters, The Vatican authorities send to investigate reports of demonic manifestations, reporters who may be interested in investigating the stories of the convent then until now or even criminals bent on restoring a sinister painting to the convent where it originally belonged.

Welcome To St. Cloud has gained some serious weight since it’s Postmortem incarnation but that doesn’t mean that it’s any less here, nor is it bloated by any stretch. Having read both versions of each of these books, I can tell you that, especially with this book in particular, it’s still Twin Peaks, The RPG. It’s still a mysterious town with mysterious people and even more supernatural influence behind it. Though the TV show concluded prematurely, you and your table can take it deeper into this weird setting and solve the murder of the Laura Palmer-esque character or get lost in it’s high strangeness.

Surely, you didn’t think I’d move on so quickly, did you?

Here’s where the real controversy begins.

Resort of The Dead is your typical zombie apocalypse game about a luxurious resort that finds itself under attack by zombies and this is all just entitled, snotty, shitty people trying to survive that zombie outbreak and swimming for it won’t help. There are zombie sharks in the water…and they’re hungry for you, Karen. I would play this one just like a Romero film because that’s exactly what it reminded me of.

The Double Feature…this one you have to check out at some point. It’s a couple small railroad type adventures but they are definitely based on schlocky horror movies that would be featured at a drive-in matinee and they were fun as hell to read. I also can’t wait to run them.

Sexual Holocaust, I saved for last for a good reason. This is one of the ones that got banned from Drive-Thru RPG over the title. The scenario itself revolves around a murder mystery and The Pyramid of Pain which comes directly from The Apostles of Pain and you know that means The Beyond makes it’s presence known. In fact, this one is very reminiscent of Hellraiser: Inferno. This scenario takes on a more investigative tone with elements of S&M being part of the entire thing. The one pictured is the original version which has been updated with newer art to make the Apostles and The Pyramid a lot more scary but it’s a setting/adventure that is perfect for Wretchploitation.

Okay, let’s go to Morocco where things go really Cronenberg-ish. This setting isn’t cyberpunk because let’s face it, Cyberpunk RED, Shadowrun, Cities Without Number, etc…it’s been done. It’s been done well. This one is straight up Biopunk. Wretched New Flesh: Postcards From Avalidad features science, profit-driven corporations and the world around it going horribly wrong. Avalidad is the futuristic city in Morocco where research in genetics, cybernetics, VR and biotech reign supreme. This particular setting features not only genetic engineering but corporate espionage, dark plots, a literal underground, body horror and yes, even The Beyond comes into play here. If it hasn’t come together why it’s been lovingly called The Wretchedverse by now, it really should. This book also includes the adventure called As Above, So Below, the setting about the underground city known as Agartha that proves it’s anything but a rumor.

There’s also another supplemental book called All Bets Are Off which takes place in the gambling city of Lisbon, Portugal. This near-future setting gives you William S. Burroughs and David Cronenberg vibes from start to finish and a near-literal deal with the “devil” is involved here so I’d recommend checking it out.

If movies like Mad Max, Children of Men, or The Book of Eli is your thing, then why not pick up a copy of Wretched Apocalypse? This one is a book you can completely judge by it’s cover. It’s Post-Apocalypse, still done in B/X and hey, when resources are scarce, survival is the only thing that matters and it’s more important than fucking at this point, it’s not going to be bringing out the best in your character, it merely reinforces the bad behavior. Get whatever supplies you can, protect what you can hold onto, maybe you’ll encounter the mutants that got released from Takeda’s labs, you never know and if you happen to pick up a certain Pyramid-shaped object, well, maybe you too can make a Faustian deal to help you rule over the ashes. In this game, it comes across like a more grounded Gamma World, and The Beyond and it’s occult trappings have been downplayed a bit, however, once this book is in your hands, you could run it as a mix of Terminator and Hellraiser if you like, this post-apocalyptic world is truly open to make it as nightmarish as you see fit.

This was one I was really excited to hear about. Wretched Space is not a book you should be expecting to run something like Star Wars or something where hope is a factor. If anything, Space is hostile territory and your character is an asshole. This game has more in common with Cha’alt than it does with Classic Traveller. Now, The Beyond does come into play here as well and in Wretched Apocalypse, you are asked to imagine that the gods that may be summoned from The Beyond to be that of Cosmic Horror/Lovecraftian type. This is no different because you are out in the cosmos flying through the stars, why would you not summon something straight out of Event Horizon at this point? Also, there are nods back to Wretched Bastards with The Adityan who are perceived as our creators having experimented with their own and Elven DNA, thus adding in that Ancient Astronaut vibe that can certainly be fun to toy with.

Here’s where I’ll conclude for the day. While Wretchploitation is my favorite because of it’s versatility, this one is running about neck-and-neck with it because it does dark, urban horror as it’s primary default setting. Wretched Darkness is a book that I did some additional writing on. Primarily, my contribution was the additional writing of The Paymon Tarot, a cursed Tarot deck that was loosely based on The Goetia Tarot. Naturally, drawing cards from that deck for the character can spell trouble of many kinds but this book is really where we’re going here so don’t let me digress into one small part of it here.

If you were a fan of the game Kult (first edition) and you thought it went far darker than the old White Wolf games did but you didn’t like Kult: Divinity Lost, then ditch that book for Wretched Darkness and find out that it’s a better update to the first edition.

This game’s focus is dark urban horror and the factions of Wretched Epoque, Wretched New Flesh or even Wretched Apocalypse can come into play. You can also do urban fantasy if you like but in this particular volume (and it’s possibly the biggest of the books so far) The Beyond undergoes a bit of an expansion, becoming a little less nebulous and a bit more fleshed out. If ever you’ve wanted true B/X horror, this is truly your game. This is not Scooby Doo by any stretch of the imagination.

These are all First Edition, first-run Wretchedverse games by The Red Room and I invite everyone to check them out. I became a fan of this particular series because it’s so linked together and explorable while fleshing it out for yourself however you like.

I should also mention that this list isn’t exactly exhaustive and The Second Editions will be something I cover soon. I wanted to do a full review of these, however, The Red Room releases so much, so fast that I haven’t had the time or money to keep up except in the realm of PDFs and let me tell you, that is so much easier said than done. If you’re interested in something like this and you’re not sure where to start, then starting with these first editions or maybe even the revised versions of these first editions isn’t a bad place to start. The really good news is that you can pick up Wretched Darkness, then do Wretched Bastards, then hop over to Wretchploitation and double back to Wretched Epoque without a problem. Better, you can even subscribe to The Red Room Website where you will have access to every PDF release included plus access to beta versions of games they’re releasing for only $20 a month. I don’t know where else you can get a deal like that. Print versions are also available on The Red Room’s Lulu Store.

I also think it’s important to point out the elephant in the room; The AI Art generated from Pixels, Stable Diffusion and other sources. If you scroll back up and look at the covers for Wretched Country, Welcome To St Cloud, Wretched New Flesh and even the interior of the O.G. Wretched Bastards, those are art pieces done by Jon Torres aka The Basic Expert. Also, inside Wretched Bastards, you’ll find art by David and Melissa Guyll of Awful Good Games and, if that name sounds familiar, then you’re in luck because they’re the husband and wife team behind Dungeons & Delvers pictured below…

The fact of the matter is that The Red Room was using a mix of AI art well before it was ever considered controversial and it’s something I’ve never given a damn about one way or the other. The constant shrieks of AI art “stealing” from other artists have not been substantiated in a court of law and, until it is, I still won’t give a damn. Welcome to the reality of Independent Games. There was a huge to-do where Chaosium and Wizards of The Coast have pontificated at length about how they’d never ever release anything not made by human hands…but that didn’t stop all the layoffs right before Christmas, right, WoTC? I also predicted that Chaosium and their followers would be back to calling all of their players every “-ist” and “-phobe” in the book, regardless of agreement or not.

Reality of the situation was and is that art is extremely costly and I reject any notion that it should not be used if the people doing the creating of a product decide to use it. Wizards of The Coast have been caught on numerous occasions using it to enhance their own art or just using it as generated. I didn’t give a shit then because they were obviously lying about using it. Fact is, The Red Room uses a mixture of stock art, human-generated art with computer enhancements, art completely done by humans and AI. Their books have been going up in price as well but considering how much has been packed into those books, it’s not exactly a stretch to figure out why. Those books are getting thicker with Wretched Darkness being among the thickest of the bunch thus far. Other artists such as Jae Tanaka and Joe Necronomicon have also had their art featured in the books. If that is a dealbreaker for you, then I hope you enjoy the endless procession of Kickstarters and books that are becoming increasingly overpriced by large corporations who care nothing about you because there are plenty of them out there and if you want a true replacement then it’s time to put money where mouth is instead of running said mouth. Financially, if it’s not viable for someone to use art generated solely by humans, telling them to not publish at all is going to garner an instant middle finger from me.

The Red Room’s transparency about prominently displaying their use of AI art should not be drawing penalties. Remember that WoTC straight up lied about using AI art and got caught and Chaosium cares less than zero about you. The Red Room appreciates every customer they get and they never tried to hamstring anyone who created content for their work.

Make up your own mind but I would strongly suggest ignoring the AI art and get yourself into a game you might actually enjoy for a change.

Next part, we’ll get into what changed in The Wretchedverse and why and a certain company that made that happen.