It's 2017. I sincerely never thought I'd be giving positive reviews to a 500 page zombie RPG heartbreaker. But here I am.

A little backstory: I didn't know anything about RPPR until relatively recently (mid-September 2017). Before picking up this through BackerKit, I had no exposure to anything that Caleb Stokes has written or worked on. Someone had pointed this game in my direction and I immediately just ignored it.

Because the pitch they gave me was "it's a tabletop RPG where you're killing zombies and trying to fight tooth and nail to get back to civilization because while you're dealing with the undead the rest of the world still functions". And frankly if they told me there was procedural generation and crafting elements I probably would've told them to go fuck themselves.

Anyway, all of 2016 happens and then most of 2017 and I remember this game exists again and I pick it up and oh good lord 500 pages. This is a heartbreaker isn't it? Christ.

Red Markets is by far the only 500 page RPG I will ever read front to back ever again. This game is a heartbreaker in the best way: the sheer amount of rage and vitriol that Caleb puts into his words that are leveled at American capitalism grabbed me and lifted me up. The first 100 pages are all in-setting fluff and in 95% of anything running this long I would consider that inexcusable, absolutely unforgivable. But it works. There's anger but it's a passionate anger, there's vitriol but it's a mournful vitriol.

Because, as Caleb has said, this is game is a poverty simulator but he added the zombies to make it be less gut-wrenchingly depressing. And where this would be a game one would easily pass over normally, the fact of the matter is that Caleb understands the economics of poverty and the psychology of the impoverished. This is a well-researched book that is a good introductory guide to poverty and also you can play a 6 foot tall Latent with a broadsword and a puppy that kites the undead towards the swordsman. When I later found out that Caleb has a background in education and teaching I thought "well fuck me, more teachers should write RPGs because this material is just digestable as hell".

So the setting is just tops. The writing is aces. The mechanics are wonderful. This is the sole game I've ever seen where the disadvantage of having people you care about is actually a good thing because their presence heals your soul as long as they're fed. The mechanics are also the absolute right best mix of crunch and narrative power that I've seen this year since Blades In The Dark. And honestly you couldn't make me pick a better game for 2017. The mechanics have been thoroughly playtested (ended up listening to The Brutalists and Fallen Flag and Caleb and Ross were particularly rigorous to make sure it all actually works). The mechanics have also been designed by people who recognize the pitfalls of certain systems (grappling, driving, falling damage) who then go out of their way to make them not suck. This game has by far some of the best car-crash damage rules I've seen and that's mostly because the rules are written with a sense of levity in their words.

Christ I could just keep gushing but let's be a little bit fair here and say what I dislike. The Bust rules are brutal. This is intentional. I still don't see myself being able to assemble a group of people who are going to want to use them. I'm quite sure that there are folks out there with open communication in their group and the right mix of people but as it stands any game I run will probably lean more on the Boom side of things. I also feel like the Moths weren't entirely presented as being morally grey but A: I read this book after 2016 and 2017 and let's be real this colored my view of the work and B: there are forthcoming books which I'm excited for that will change up the rules and playstyles. Really any criticism I will say kind of just amounts to "there are probably folks who will be able to run with these rules and setting choices, I'm not one of them but they're at least pretty sound". I pity the group who end up with someone playing a Meek Believer and nobody's really prepared for what that entails.

In summation I would heavily recommend Red Markets for doing what I considered the impossible: making a game about poverty and a game about zombies wrapped in a 500 page book actually work. No small feat. I am looking forward to the forthcoming books.

As a closing remark, I will say this: this is probably the only game I can ever see myself playing with my more heavily conservative right-wing family members if you had to make me run something for them. The subject matter is executed in such a way that it also seems to be an effective conversation starter for people on both sides of the aisle by forcing them to play a few hours in a Takers' shoes and see how they feel about being poor.

And also zombies are there.

Amazing game. The author's ability to create a zombie game that is truly unique speaks magnitudes about their talent as a writer and game designer. An amazingly written setting, easy to learn rules, and stunning artwork make for what is quite possibly the best RPG of 2017.

Fantastic production value I can't wait to purchase a physical copy. Brilliantly written, interesting concept, and is easy to pick up and run.

This game skews dark. As written it leads to interesting moral choices and a sense of impending doom. The players are eternally one job/paycheck away from ruin. Altruism inevitably has deeply personal costs to the characters and those characters families, making heroism all the more heroic. I have some criticisms, but they're very minor, because the game is so well done. It's obviously a labor (pun intended) of love, but don't get it because of that. Buy the game if you want to grapple with a type of horror, financial, that many deal with every day. Spend money on this product to support critiques of capitalism!

Well thought out, high production values, strong atmosphere. The best new game I've seen in a long time.

as a heads up, I was a backer, and am a long-time (maybe the word "lifer" is more appropriate) fan of Caleb's! I don't claim to be objective--who is?--but I'm definitely hyperexposed to Red Markets, so. take this for what it's worth!

Red Markets is a bloodshot-eyed critique of the world we live in through the newly-coined genre of economic horror. when we talk about zombie media, we often talk about how the zombies aren't really the point, that queue cliche humans are the real monsters, etc. that's true in Red Markets, too--Caleb's gone on record as saying he wants his living dead to be more like weather than anything--but it goes a step further. instead of a smug morality play about how bad people get in extremity, Red Markets is about how bad we already are, right here, right now, in the real world. "the apocalypse has come, and like everything else in capitalism, it's unevenly distributed."

in Red Markets, the zombie plague starts out fast 28 Days Later style and turns into an endless slow Land of the Dead Romerosacape with just a tease of cosmic horror aberration to satisfy and squelch us "but why, but how"ers. but the world doesn't just give up and die. the haves are separated from the have-nots, and most nations manage to armor up and keep some territory for themselves. billions die, and a lot of land is ceded, but just enough last that there's a world to go back to. the internet endures. trade is still a thing. for the lucky few in the safe zones, an opulent lifestyle is still possible.

but our PCs aren't the lucky ones. whatever their skills, whatever they're backgrounds, they're among the millions left behind in the dead zones--the Loss, in the language of the setting, because every goddamn thing is named with an econ term and it's the best. declared dead by their government, they huddle in enclaves dreamed up in collaboration between player and GM--sorry, the Market, because see above, seriously everything--whose hardscrabble lives are defined by their surpluses and shortfalls. these protagonist Takers are the ones who won't put up with where they are, and who will do more or less anything to escape the Loss and get into the deadless spaces, the Recession, where they might eke out a barely-scraping-by existence or ascend to the ranks of the soccer moms and craft beer dads, depending on how much they've got socked away when they finally head east.

Red Markets has a strong conceit, but its real genius is in the way its mechanics reinforce its ideas. it's fascinating to compare RM to early editions of D&D. D&D used to be interest itself with the meticulous bookkeeping of carry weights and rations, aiming for a pseudo-simulationist version of what an expedition might look like. in Red Markets, in contrast, scarcity is everywhere, but keeping track of it all is simple, front and center, and constantly stressful. you want to make an attack? spend a charge. you want to evade an enemy? spend a charge. you want to reload your gun? spend a charge. everything, from equipment to characters, is wearing down in Red Markets, and between game design and some super slick work on character sheets, it feels natural, tactile and easy to track. has anyone else ever avoided looking at their bank balance when they know it's low? Red Markets won't let you. you have to watch yourself dwindle as the Loss erodes you, as every single gamble you take exacts its opportunity cost. you are poor. your resources are limited. everything crisis you dedicate time and attention to is another crisis you won't be able to.

even beyond the baseline attrition gameplay, Red Markets has some insights into the human (poverty capitalism) condition that are, to my experience, wholly unmatched in the gaming space. some of these rules ended up being too hard on players--the game shipped with "boom" and "bust" difficulty modes, with Caleb's harshest critiques on the world we live in boxed off into Bust options. it might be more personal than a review ought to be, but there was a particular rule, "No Budget No Buy," that genuinely changed the way I think about money and lack in the real world. under NBNB, a character needs to plan for the things they'll buy -after- a job -before- they take the job. they need to decide how much they'll bank toward escaping the Loss, how much they'll spend on getting themselves stitched up, how much they'll spend on psychiatric care and upgrading their favorite revolver. any money they get in excess of what they've planned disappears. "it's extra money!" Caleb explained the mindset behind this--a mindset I've seen myself and others actively sink into out here in the skinlands. "I can do whatever I want with it!" so it gets spent offscreen on vanities that don't get the character anywhere.

I'm not sure I've ever read an RPG book before that changed how I thought about the psychology of poverty, and how I thought about my own relationship with money.

but Red Markets is full of these insights. it's distinctly Hebanon that the line between bitter truth and dark comedy is crossed again and again as Caleb details the sovereign citizen-esque Randians and the antivax Detox movement. it's entirely in mood that the human element makes immunity to the virus even worse than being subject to it. it's way too true that you can fail your way into doing a job for an employer who won't even cover your operating costs.

I've been struggling to make a comparison between Red Markets and Unknown Armies in terms of their significance, their moment, but in the end, I think I shouldn't--Unknown Armies is a game about feeling good about the world, feeling like it all matters, like caring is important. Red Markets features all of the big wins and huge payoffs of any adventure RPG, but it is, at its heart, harsh about real structures that deserve harsh treatment and don't get it. it's not a screed--it's a game, and a very playable game, even if you just like intense zombie-economy sims--but it speaks to life in the twenty-first century for a majority of Americans who are barely getting by.

Caleb recorded a podcast detailing his process in making Red Markets, Game Designer's Workshop. he constantly apologized for how he was fucking it up, which I didn't get at all. it was far and away the most careful, thoughtful and professional process I've encountered in--almost any Kickstarter in any medium? anyway--he'd often summarize Red Markets more or less thus, misquoted: "you can work every day of your life as a roofer for 30 years, then one day you step wrong, you slip, you fall off the roof and break your back. and then you have nothing." that's what Red Markets is going for. you're not an invulnerable hero who can come back from any kobold stab. you're an average American laborer (wherever you might actually be) who's working a XXX job where one accident could spell the end for no good reason. where no one's looking out for you, even though someone should be. even though it's not just.

go there, man.