Red Faction

This entry is part of the PBM List.

Costs: Free
Email: matcolver@yahoo.co.uk
Frequency: One per week
Type: Science Fiction, Conspiracy, Paranoia, Future
Last-Update: 2026Mar24
Keywords: free, closed-ended, email, human, space, rpg, abstract

Description

Red Faction

The future was never supposed to be like this.

Great leaps forward, including, finally, humans living on Mars. And yet, every day on the red planet feels less like a bright new age, and more like a big step backwards. Grim metal corridors. Grimy mines. Dirty bars filled with suspicious faces.

The tension between workers and management has been rising for weeks now, just like the temperature due to the broken environment modulators. Another death last week. It's a powder keg ready to explode - perhaps literally, as well as metaphorically.

The mine managers say that Red Faction agitators are dangerous terrorists. Sympathisers say they are the only way that workers will survive.

There's also talk of people here who aren't even human. You could have sworn that new miner was in two different places at the same time. Simulants... supposedly all hunted down and destroyed, but they say a few slipped through the net. I've never seen Ash eat a meal.

And suppose they find out the truth about you?

It's not paranoia if they really ARE watching you.

It may be time to pick a side...

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Red Faction will be a play by email role-playing game set in a dystopian future, very loosely based on the Red Faction video game series, and also influenced by movies like Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Blade Runner, and Total Recall (1990), as well as the RPGs 'Paranoia', 'Over the Edge', and similar media.

The main setting will be the ULTOR mines and factories on Mars. As the game develops, new settings on the moon or on Earth may be added.

This is a game about conspiracies, plots, intrigue, and hidden agendas, as well as action. Situations and people may not be all they seem. Your PC may not know who they can trust, including other PCs, and what people are hiding.

Your character might be a human, super-soldier, mutant, telepath, clone, cyborg, or simulant. Types other than human are usually illegal.

Your character is certainly hiding something. Your PC must have at least one significant secret. Perhaps they are a member of the Red Faction, or some other illegal group. Maybe they are a spy for ULTOR, or for one of the other mega-corps. They might be posing as human, or have some other secret, which they would go to some lengths to prevent becoming public knowledge. They might risk imprisonment, punishment, or death if found out.

      


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Greg Lindahl