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.