Red Markets
Quickstart GuideBest For
Groups who want a zombie RPG that's really about economic survival: negotiating contracts, managing resources, and deciding what you're willing to sacrifice to keep your dependents alive.
Core Mechanic
Roll 2d10: one black (skill), one red (threat). Black higher than red means success; doubles are critical results. Characters track economic resources via Bounty (currency), gear with limited charges and upkeep costs, and a negotiation system using a Sway Tracker. Humanity erodes through Trauma, Stress, and Detachment tracks.
The core rolls a black skill die against a red threat die, with the higher winning. The defining layer is economics, where Bounty, gear upkeep, and a negotiation system make money the real enemy. That Profit system is the steep part to learn.
- Free to tryQuickstartA free starter you can actually play
- Get it nowSold newIn print or as a legal PDF
Not listed
We have not listed this book's reference tools. Very short games are read straight from the page, so there is nothing to look up, and some older entries have not been checked yet.
Highlights
Economic focus makes every job feel high-stakes, negotiation mechanics add tension before combat even starts, humanity/trauma system creates character arcs, zombie threat serves a story about capitalism and survival
Considerations
Heavy bookkeeping with multiple resource tracks, relentlessly bleak tone, steep learning curve for the Profit system, limited availability of the full rulebook
Rules license Proprietary
Similar systems
- Bite the Hand — Cyberpunk rebels fight ruthless cities with dangerous cybernetics, mounting stress, and lethal consequencesCompare Red Markets vs Bite the Hand
- Starving Folly — Setting-agnostic horror where spent stamina, fraying sanity, and lasting scars wear characters downCompare Red Markets vs Starving Folly
- Smallville Roleplaying Game — Superhero drama in Smallville, driven by convictions and complicated relationshipsCompare Red Markets vs Smallville Roleplaying Game
- Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game — Protect family, community, and home from eldritch forces stirring beneath early 20th-century AppalachiaCompare Red Markets vs Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game
- Delta Green — Covert agents investigate cosmic horrors and conceal the truth at a personal costCompare Red Markets vs Delta Green
- Shifters — Step sideways into a fog-choked otherworld to hunt the objects that poison ordinary streetsCompare Red Markets vs Shifters