Red Markets - 10K Lakes Campaign Explainer

For the past several months ourselves, The Roleplaying Exchange podcast and other members of the Red Markets community have been creating and playing in a living campaign setting for Red Markets, entitled 10,000 Lakes. We, of course, recorded these sessions and will soon be releasing them for your enjoyment.

A living campaign is one shared by multiple gaming groups, and the actions of one group can affect the game of the other. Red Markets’ episodic structure makes it an ideal candidate for a drop-in, drop-out style campaign.

The setting of 10,000 Lakes takes place in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Upper Michigan; the areas surrounding Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. The settlements and enclaves here are small, sparse, nothing large enough to support the cost and notoriety that a full Taker crew brings.

All the Takers in the game belong to Freelance, a crew consisting of around twenty members spread out across the Loss. Because the area they cover is so large, location and availability determine who goes out on what job. Not everyone gets to work.

This fiction allows for our unique campaign structure: Each episode will consist of a different GM along with a rotating cast of players, with jobs created by everyone participating in the campaign. No two sessions will be alike, but each one will have an effect on the world of 10,000 Lakes.

Actual Play episodes will be distributed between the two podcasts, and the easiest way to listen is by subscribing to both The Roleplaying Exchange and Technical Difficulties. Up-to-date episode lists will also be found on each podcasts’ website.

Red Markets is the game that brought us all together, not only as a podcast, but as friends. We’re so happy that we can return to this world, now joined by a wonderful and ever expanding community. Everyone involved has put a tremendous amount of effort into planning, writing, playing, and creating this campaign, and we hope that you’ll join us in our little experiment.