Experience a Spine-Tingling 'One-Night Rules-light' Experience With STRANGE STORIES

Welcome back to TTRPG Insider! This week, we are taking a look at Strange Stories, a new horror-oriented TTRPG developed by the team behind The HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast aka Strange Studies of Strange Stories, which is among the longer-running horror podcasts on the market. The game is described as a “one-night, rules-light” game designed to be easily picked up and played. The designers are also making it easy to pick up by attaching audio adventures to each session, which they claim will make game prep much easier.

I sat down with podcast host and former Chaosium contributor Chris Lackey to talk about Strange Stories, which brings 16 years of audio production to TTRPG design, and the types of horror it hopes to explore.

The interview was edited lightly for clarity.

1. What inspired the decision to make a TTRPG?

Chris Lackey: I’ve been playing TTRPGs since I was 10 years old. My dad played D&D at our Lutheran church back in the early 80s (before the Satanic Panic). I got the old D&D 1981 box set. Couldn’t get my head around it, but still ran it for my friend and his mom, and we had a great time. Since then, I’ve been gaming non-stop, trying scores of game systems. I’ve written a bit for Chaosium and Pelgrane Press over the years, but I always wanted to do my own game. However, I didn’t want to make a game just for the sake of doing it. I had to have a good reason. 

We’ve been doing our podcast, Strange Studies of Strange Stories (formerly the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast), for over 16 years now. On the show, we cover classic genre fiction and love these kinds of stories. We thought it would be great to tie the two things together. But we had to do it just right. It had to fit the genres and be accessible to everyone. 

2. What sort of game is STRANGE STORIES? What sort of stories are you striving to tell?

Chris Lackey: We’re striving to tell tales of classic genre fiction. We aren't limiting ourselves to traditional cosmic horror or standard investigative mysteries. We want to tell stories of planetary diplomacy, ancient sorceries, surreal dreamlands, and just plain wacky adventures.

We are striving to capture that specific feeling of an old pulp magazine or a classic speculative short story—where ordinary, relatable characters are suddenly dropped into a unique situation, and the entire night is about discovering how they handle the fallout and rise to the challenge.

3. What do you mean when you describe the game as a "rules-light one-night system"?

Chris Lackey: At its core, Strange Stories is a one-night, rules-light, anthology-style roleplaying game made specifically for self-contained, single-session play. Most of our adventures are designed to be completely wrapped up in about two hours.

Player characters have only a handful of skills and roll a pool of D6s looking for matching values. Modifiers are decided on a case-by-case basis, narratively, with a focus on storytelling. 

4. Horror comes in a variety of genres. Are there any particulars that may have inspired the stories and gameplay you're exploring?

Chris Lackey: Because we've spent over 16 years dissecting horror on the podcast, we really wanted to sample different flavors of the genre rather than sticking to just one style.

The game comes with five stories, only two of which are straight horror. The others touch into the realms of science fiction and fantasy. We have stretch goals for the campaign, including more stories. But there are different types of horror, and we want to be able to tell varying types of stories. 

Because horror relies on tension and revelation, our mechanics are built around what we call 'setbacks'—narrative damage like 'frayed nerves' or 'paralyzing fear.' This allows the Story Guide to easily shift gears in tone. If the game is light, setbacks are less impactful and easier to recover from, but if you’re at the climax of the story, they can be serious and life-threatening. A setback like 'nervous' carries a very different weight than 'psychologically scarred,' giving the story guide a tactile way to control the stakes as the story unfolds.

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Prepping a Session Via Podcast?

5. What inspired the decision to make audio scenarios related to your campaign one-shots? How do you see those influencing or helping the DM? What does that look like from a game design standpoint?

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people about TTRPGs is actually the logistics of getting people together. One-shots are low-commitment, and you don’t need the same people there week to week.  And I also find that players really go for it when they aren’t worried too much about what happens to their character. Less investment might take away from the emotional impact, but the fun gets turned up to eleven. 

To lean into that fast-paced style, we knew we also had to address the GM prep problem. We’ve been producing weekly podcasts for over 16 years, and we know how to do it. With modern technology, people get much of their entertainment from focused audio, such as audiobooks and podcasts, tailored to what they seek.  A typical TTRPG is more of a reference book and doesn’t necessarily make for entertaining audio. 

However, since our show is all about exploring short stories, we thought, ‘Why not look at the story of an adventure scenario?’ From there, we knew we could not only make it entertaining but also useful. Heck, we could make it so that all the prep you’ll need to run a session is to listen to a 30-minute podcast while you do the dishes or commute home from work, just using the book as a reference. 

That audio adventure companion podcast will include the main plot, scenes, story guide, character tips, alternative ways to play, and what we learned from playtesting. It will put the story guide on the right footing to tell their story with their players. 

6. Does your game design approach imply a pick-up-and-play style since storytellers can use the audio dramas to prep?

The design absolutely implies a true pick-up-and-play style for the entire table.

For the Story Guide, you can listen to the audio on your commute home, grab the book, and be ready to go. For the players, because we use pregenerated characters with deep, baked-in stakes and a rules-light engine that takes two minutes to explain, there is zero homework. You can invite friends or family over on a Saturday night who have never played an RPG in their lives, hand them a character sheet, and be rolling dice and telling a great story ten minutes later.

As a perfect example, my wife (who is not a gamer) recently ran an adventure using this system for her 73-year-old aunt, two of her 30-year-old cousins, and our 11-year-old son. Most of them had never played a tabletop RPG before or even really knew what one was. It was absolutely awesome to watch them sit down, completely 'get it' right out of the gate, and have an incredible time.

7. What are you most excited for players to discover in this set?

The physical book is going to be absolutely beautiful. Graham Pilling is handling most of the art and layout, and his work is stunning.

Beyond the look of it, the adventures themselves are just incredibly fun. There are fascinating, high-stakes choices baked right into each scenario, and I think players are going to have a blast discovering where those choices lead. For seasoned tabletop gamers, I think it’s a great pick-up game, but they’re going to see this as the perfect 'gateway game' to finally bring their non-gamer friends and family to the table. 

Plus, I genuinely believe the Audio Adventure Companion will be a total game-changer in how people prepare for sessions. Honestly, once people use it, they’re going to wonder why no one has ever done this before!

Strange Stories’s Backerkit campaign is expected to launch on July 21.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to [email protected].