Inspirations
Shit you’ll like
Here are some music, movies, TV shows, books, and people that give you an idea of the vibe I’m going for with Misspent Youth.
Music
Rage Against the Machine, Anti-Flag, Bikini Kill, Public Enemy, Dead Prez, Cock Sparrer, Stiff Little Fingers, The Clash, Ani DiFranco, Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails, English Rebel Songs 1318-1984 by Chumbawamba
Movies
A Clockwork Orange, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, A Scanner Darkly (the book by Philip K. Dick, too), The Corporation, The Animatrix: Kid’s Story, Mean Creek, Stand By Me, The Goonies, Home Alone, The Breakfast Club, Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Suburbia (1984), Logan’s Run
TV
The Boondocks, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Books
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, Feed by MT Anderson, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, King Dork by Frank Portman, Snow Crash and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, Runaways by Brian K. Vaughn
Historical figures/movements/personalities
Monkeywrenching, Noam Chomsky, Morgan Spurlock, Michael Moore, The Weather Underground, Earth First!, The Open Source Initiative, The Yes Men, Malcolm X, Howard Zinn, Mario Savio, The Yippies
Download for Free
Preview just the first chapter or download a complete version of the game, a PDF of what we printed on paper.
Misspent Youth is a tabletop RPG about friendship, standing up to bullies, and changing the world. The game is for 4 to 6 people, one of whom plays The Authority, the force that's making the world a shitty place to live. The others all play Youthful Offenders (YOs), the only ones who can redeem the future from this pack of assholes trying to fuck it up.Ever wanted to play The Hunger Games (but focused on friends), Clockwork Orange (but with heroic droogies), Hackers (but less goofy), Mad Max: Fury Road (but, again, with teenagers), or Avatar: The Last Airbender (but sci-fi)? This is the game for you. It's fucking awesome; if you want to see for yourself how awesome, check out the full text of issue 1.1 on my site, for free download.
The rules
Here's how Misspent Youth works: First you create the evil Authority as a group, then you create your characters together. At the start of each episode, you ask questions about the friendship between the characters, then you make up some villains for The Authority to employ in fucking up your lives. Each episode has a seven-scene structure which, in every complete session, gives you a story with a beginning, middle, and end.When it comes to the place in each scene where The Authority tries to stomp you in the face with its massive, fuck-off boot, you have a Struggle. In a Struggle, you attempt to achieve your group's hope without letting The Authority get her objective. As you throw dice in a craps-like system, you can win it all for your side or fuck up your hopes for all your friends. But not to worry, if you roll a loss, you can sell out one of your convictions! You describe doing something so vile, heinous, and Authority-like that your friends are horrified with you. You win it for your side but now you're permanently more like The Authority!Once the first YO has sold out every conviction, that's the last episode of the series. In each episode, you have the chance to change the world to make it a better place to live. If the last episode of the series ends and you haven't changed the world enough, a catastrophe that the group authors at the start of the game comes to pass, and it's your clique's fault for failing to stop it. But if you beat The Authority, you can fix the world.
To get the PDF version, click here.
To get the free PDF eyebleed edition, click here.
Misspent Youth: Sell Out with Me is a fucking awesome supplement for Misspent Youth. I’ve gathered together some of the best writers and artists in the RPG hobby to present you with a metric fuckton of cool alternative options to play the game with.
First off, this is a hoard of 17 new settings. Each includes The Authority (that asshole who’s fucking up the world), the Dystopia (the world being up-fucked), and the YOs (the meddling little “youthful offender” fuckers who are the world’s only hope for freedom). Normally, it’s the Authority and Dystopia generation systems in the core book that lead players through the process of creating a cool world. Here, the writers I’ve collected for you showcase the kinds of things you can make with those systems: we got space, we got fantasy, we got historical drama, we got uplifted animals, we got the real fucking world, and of course, it wouldn’t be an RPG supplement without your standard black and white world where you are the only ones who can bring color to it.
And if that weren’t enough, we’ve got two hacks of the game. These are complete minigames based on Misspent Youth, but with their own unique twists`. You can play out the story of a band making music for Love, or a bunch of bitter Old Fucks who have to drag their carcasses out of retirement to save a world gone (back) to hell.
Orders from the original Authority: Fun is mandatory. Anyone not having fun will be held for special questioning!
To grab the PDF, click here.
Misspent Youth: Sell Out with Me is a fucking awesome supplement for Misspent Youth. I’ve gathered together some of the best writers and artists in the RPG hobby to present you with a metric fuckton of cool alternative options to play the game with.
First off, this is a hoard of 17 new settings. Each includes The Authority (that asshole who’s fucking up the world), the Dystopia (the world being up-fucked), and the YOs (the meddling little “youthful offender” fuckers who are the world’s only hope for freedom). Normally, it’s the Authority and Dystopia generation systems in the core book that lead players through the process of creating a cool world. Here, the writers I’ve collected for you showcase the kinds of things you can make with those systems: we got space, we got fantasy, we got historical drama, we got uplifted animals, we got the real fucking world, and of course, it wouldn’t be an RPG supplement without your standard black and white world where you are the only ones who can bring color to it.
And if that weren’t enough, we’ve got two hacks of the game. These are complete minigames based on Misspent Youth, but with their own unique twists`. You can play out the story of a band making music for Love, or a bunch of bitter Old Fucks who have to drag their carcasses out of retirement to save a world gone (back) to hell.
Orders from the original Authority: Fun is mandatory. Anyone not having fun will be held for special questioning!
To grab the PDF, click here.
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