Gutterpunk the TTRPG

You’re not entirely sure how you got here - but magically and mystically, you came to a world people call the Gutter.  At first glance, you’d normally think this land was not too different from where you’re from with its roads, buildings, and industrial sprawl, but this world is a twisted tale with its out-of-place denizens and the fact that the only “humans” are the punks of Earth who have also stumbled upon the Gutter.  The monsters don’t hide under the bed in this world, and while you should be terrified, you’ve got the magic of the Riff and a stomp in your step that will shake the foundations of The Gutter to its core!

Welcome to Gutterpunk - A tabletop roleplaying game that’s one part isekai (traveling to a world to be a hero) and one-part Wonderland; all punk!  In this game, a group of players come together to tell a story where one person becomes a storyteller (the Lead), and the rest take on the personas of punks.  These Gutterpunks seek to live by their own rules and survive in a world where the common threats take on an even more sinister twist.

All the core mechanics and setting information is stored in this one book, as well as observations and interviews with people who have been part of the punk movements, both new and old, spanning cultures from coast to coast in the United States, including members of the TTRPG community.  As a Gutterpunk, you'll:

• Band together to survive with your fellow punks, creating unique crews!
• Tell tales of heroism in the face of overwhelming odds with the power of music and attitude!
• Live a life of freedom in a music scene that blurs the line of art and action!
• Facedown the ruling forces of the world in the many forms Authority may take!

Let’s Talk Core Game Mechanics
When Gutterpunk was first written, we wanted to create a system that checked several boxes.  We wanted something easy to pick-up and learn, used a common mechanic and dice, and appealing to people across the vast expanse of the hobby.  So, for this system, you’ll do some rolls as meet-or-beat challenges and some as dice pools, and both these kinds of challenges using only d6’s.

There was a moment of looking at the classification of stats and skills for most TTRPGs and the wants and desires of the community that we decided to take a huge jump and created what we call the RIFF system as a result.  A loose example of that leap would be asking, “Hey, what is strength?”  Have you ever seen a professional weightlifter struggle to keep up with a skinny kid doing chin-ups?  How about seeing a small person stare down a bureaucratic thug in riot gear when the cause is righteous? Maybe strength is more than a number that we assign positive or negative values to for a game.  The RIFF system takes some core ideas of punk culture, from being Bold to being Witty, and transforms them into the stats you’ll use playing, where each descriptor covers various mental, social, and physical tests.

The punk culture is vibrant and constantly blurs the line between reality and art, which we wanted to be true to in this game - but it can be so hard to truly capture the essence of one art and bring it into another!  We can toss around descriptors of games like “heavy metal” or “noir” just as easily as we can with the phrase “punk”.  We wanted to not only blur that line - we wanted to shatter it!  The Riff system also embraces a special dice mechanic - rather than performing a standard challenge; the player can use the power of the Riff to MAKE music both in-game and out-of-game!  That may sound crazy, but part of the game's mechanics will have the players roll a dice pool for a magical effect, and then those rolls can be translated to play music.

For example, let’s say you’re facing down some thugs, and you use your guitar to blast them across the room and into the wall.  The game mechanics will set a difficulty and dice pool to use.  Roll your dice pool, adjust your final numbers, and see if you succeeded.  Write down your final results and use the chart in the book - and it becomes music!  We promise the mechanics are simple enough that you don’t need a degree in music (or even talent) to make a nigh-endless supply of musical riffs!

The book contains all the essentials for playing the Gutterpunk TTRPG written and created in the style of the Punkzines of the 80s and 90s that were a huge part of the scene!  This includes:

• Rules for Character Creation,
• A quick explanation of the rules so you can hop right into the game,
• More in-depth explanation and examples for the Riff core and music mechanics,
• An alternative system for creating Riffs for players with more music knowledge,
• Guide to places of note and the creatures that reside in the gutter and how to create your own,
• Pre-made characters: including art, description, and backstory,
• A full adventure that works extremely well as an introductory point into the world!