RPG anthology Do Not Adjust Your Set explores modern urban legends with spooky tabletop one-shots
Talking holes never promise anything good.
Never mind the shapes in the static and ignore the whispers you can’t quite hear amongst the speaker’s whine. Do Not Adjust Your Set is a collection of system-neutral horror tabletop RPG adventures that dig into modern fears and contemporary urban legends.
Five tabletop designers have banded together to crowdfund a book of spooky one-shots on Kickstarter. Do Not Adjust Your Set is a spiritual successor to last year’s Midwinter Ghost Stories, which applied the same premise to spine-chilling winter tales. Each of the five artists will contribute their own adventure, with Ex Stasis Games’ Chant Evans offering his scenario to the whims of backers.
System-neutral modules can be plugged into any tabletop RPG with very little work to sand down the edges. Facilitators who work better with vibes and aesthetics than stat blocks and hard conversions will enjoy the freedom to interpret how best to inflict horror on their players. But these adventures are just as useful to less experienced GMs travelling beyond their comfort zone for the first time.
Included in Do Not Adjust Your Set’s collection will be Natalie Ash’s story of a queer art piece exuding a demonic influence on those enraptured by its beauty, while Matthew Dawkins taps into the anxieties of students who would commit murderous, self-destructive acts to secure their academic performance review.
Madeleine Ember’s brief might be the most immediately terrifying. According to a press release, there is a man-shaped hole in the world somewhere and it whispers promises to those who venture near its illogical borders. Travis Legge unleashes a vigilante wearing a gas mask upon players, pitting them against a faceless foe doggedly pursuing their every move. Rob Wieland’s adventure takes place in a video arcade where one cabinet becomes an extradimensional portal to somewhere weird and hostile to things made of meat.
The design team boasts a hefty curriculum vitae between them with writing credits on tabletop RPG titles such a Trophy Loom and Trophy Gold, Vampire: The Masquerade, Hunter: the Reckoning and the DIE RPG. Do Not Adjust Your Set fittingly launches its Kickstarter campaign on October 31st seeking funding for both a digital and physical version of the one-shot adventure anthology.