designed by Clint Kraus

Urchin is a role-playing game in which players take on the roles of vagrant outcasts living in Scum City, a homeless camp far below the streets of New York City. The game follows the characters’ daily struggles for survival as they work to free themselves from the cycle of hunger and poverty and discover a mythical utopian paradise realm called Agharta.

Urchin’s turn-based game system is designed to slowly eat away your character with each action that he takes. In order to survive, you’ll have to be clever and lucky. You’ll scrounge for food, commit desperate acts of violence, undertake dangerous missions, and do what you can to earn a buck. This is not a pretty game, but damn if it isn’t fun.

The game-book also includes a variety of antagonists for gamemasters to use in their games. Everything from neo-nazi youth cults to noble-born, supernatural terrorists complicate the players’ attempts to escape the gutter.

Urchin is intended to be played over the course of a single evening. It’s a great game to throw down when you have a couple of hours to spare with your friends and you’re in the mood for some gritty, surreal, adventure.

You might like this game if you like:
Films like Urchin, The Warriors, and The Fisher King, the novel Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, or video games like Grand Theft Auto.