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The borderlands of the Verdigris Valley have never been peaceful, but now an invasion force gathers at the summit of the Pashuan Way, looking hungrily down on the rich homesteads and crippled fort below. The days to come will throw six men and women into a gauntlet of desperate pressures, crushing obligations, and entangling relationships. Some will fall; some will triumph; some will cave to the pressures; some will bask in the flames like a phoenix. These six stand on the precipice of The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley. The only way out is through, and the only way through requires a painful transformation into something new.

The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley is game for up to six players and a GM. It plays in three to five sessions, or a pulse-pouding single session of jump cuts and action sequences. Best of all, it's free.

Ryan and Josh (and stuntman Will Huggins) sat down with Sean Nittner on the This Just In from NeonCon podcast. We're fresh from playing the game and we talk about what happened in the story, a little of how things work, and our hopes and dreams for the project.

It's a 23 minute listen: Episode 6 – Ryan Macklin and Josh Roby’s Vicious Crucible

So here's the thing that most excites me about the Vicious Crucible project: it's all about the situation. Each game is about these characters in this place enmeshed in these circumstances. Each game is about how that situation changes the characters and how the characters change their situation.

Roleplaying games are made up of a ton of parts — setting, resolution system, character options, dice tricks — all the pieces are important, and all of them can be clever. It's easy to design and talk about a clever dice trick; it's easy and fun to geek out about a clever setting. Situation, though, is a little harder. There are a few stellar situations out there that are widely known — Unknown Armies' Jailbreak, for instance — but on the whole, great situations are in short supply. I think that's for two reasons: first, building a solid situation is hard; and second, situations generally aren't portable and are hard to share.

I like challenges. I like difficult tasks. And so situation being hard to pull off isn't something that dissuades me; it's something that attracts me. This project is all about the situation: it lives and breathes on the strength of the situations in each game. And that means that, if this project works, it will work because the situations are strong. A strong situation makes for awesome play. The bar is set high, and when we roll out these games, they're going to fly high.