Reverse Scooby-Doo TRPG Those Wretched Kids! is part of Zine Month

Become the masked villain in a scenario reminiscent of a classic Scooby-Doo episode in upcoming roleplaying game, Those Wretched Kids!.

A solo RPG – meaning that the game is played alone, with no games master – Those Wretched Kids! sees players taking the role of the baddie in a scenario that sounds incredibly familiar to fans of the 1970s animated series, Scooby-Doo, Where are You?. The player is an ambitious entrepreneurial type whose big plans happen to require a few instances of subterfuge and skullduggery. Luckily enough, they’ll have access to their own resources – henchpeople and disguises included – that they can use to keep the townsfolk convinced that their plans are actually the work of disturbed spirits or monsters. However, the player will also have a group of meddlesome teenagers attempting to uncover their schemes to contend with.

Those Wretched Kids! is a tabletop RPG that uses the Wretched & Alone gameplay system created by Chris Bisette. In the game, the player will use a combination of solo journaling, a deck of cards, a single d6 and a tumbling tower to devise the story of their brilliant but struggling entrepreneur who is trying to pull off their plans around an abandoned amusement park. Successfully executing their schemes will require the player to balance the act of maintaining whatever legend they’ve conjured up to scare off curious folk, whilst ensuring that the actual meat of their plan is completed without any interjection from any kids who might be investigating the rumours.

Players will devise their plan using a deck of playing cards, pulling cards of different numbers and suits to determine what their next step will entail. The deck will also be used to create their player character’s origin story – how they came to need to do this scheme in the first place – and the actions of the meddlesome children investigating their amusement park. Players will then use their d6 to discover the outcome of their plans and the attempts of the nosy kids, with those outcomes then being reflected in the tumble tower that represents the various hodge-podge elements of their schemes. As things start to fall apart and get away from the player character, the tumble tower will get ever more precarious and may eventually collapse under the weight of it all. Players then use their journal to record the events of their game and the fate of their unfortunate villain.

Those Wretched Kids! was created by Kris McCalanahan and published by Squid Ink Games, with the studio’s previous releases including other indie RPG titles such as the horror RPGs Escape Sequence: Xeno and Creature Feature.

The Scooby-Doo inspired RPG is being released as part of Zine Month 2022, a community-led event that’s taking place during the time that Kickstarter’s Zinequest would usually be happening – which is now slated for August – in which creators launch crowdfunding campaigns for their respective tabletop roleplaying games.

The Kickstarter Campaign for Those Wretched Kids! is live until February 23rd, with a pledge of $17 (£13) getting backers a physical copy of the game in May. Alternatively, a digital PDF version is available for a pledge of $6 (£5).