I’ve been working on a new tabletop RPG, Hackers and Hustlers. It’s a startup themed farce in near-future San Francisco. It’s still a rough draft but I’d love some feedback. I’ve enabled comments on the Google Doc. If you run a session, I’d love to hear how it goes!

It is the very near future. You are coworkers and roommates: running a startup out of an old Victorian in San Francisco, where you also live. Your founders went to Burning Man and refused to return. Malicious forces are at work.

Hackers and Hustlers is a remix of Lasers and Feelings, a lightweight RPG that aims for a Star Trek type space adventure. I had a blast playing it and it was pretty easy to shift the rules to fit startup / San Francisco tropes.

I ran a playtest last Sunday and it was a lot of fun. It felt like a Coen Brothers movie mixed with Silicon Valley - just what I was going for!

The tone has shifted throughout my iterations. I was originally aiming for a more serious and dark vibe, like Doctorow’s Little Brother or Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. However, the rules and tropes lend themselves much more to farce / satire so I’ve veered much more in that direction. I still think there’s room for an RPG that generates Doctorow-style stories.

Anyhow - I’d any love feedback! Here’s the link again.