''The Shab-al-Hiri Roach'' is a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

by Jason Morningstar, independently published by

Bully Pulpit Games Bully Pulpit Games, based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is a small publisher of indie role-playing games. History Their games include ''Fiasco (role-playing game), Fiasco'' and ''Star Crossed (game), Star Crossed''. The publisher is named fo ...

Description

The game is GM-less and designed for single-session play at the end of which a winner is determined. Its tone is black comedy, lampooning academia. The game is about the internal politics of a buttoned-down New England college campus in 1919. The titular roach is a soul-eating telepathic insect bent on destroying human civilization. A major part of play is which characters are under the control of the roach and its offspring. The goal of the game is to be the player with the most reputation at the end of the game. You cannot be the winner if you are currently under the control of the roach, but being under its control allows you to gain reputation much more easily.

Publication history

Jason Morningstar thought of the core ideas behind ''The Shab-al-Hiri Roach'' while thinking about both the topic of Lovecraftian horror and his own personal fear of cockroaches. Morningstar submitted this game to the

Game Chef Game Chef was an annual American contest for role-playing game designers. History Jason Morningstar Jason Morningstar is an American indie role-playing game designer, publishing mostly through Bully Pulpit Games. Morningstar's games often lack ...

2005 competition, where it was among the nine best games chosen from the 38 entrants as one of the "Inner Circle". ''The Shab-al-Hiri Roach'' continued to undergo revisions as Morningstar, Steve Segedy, and Patrick M. Murphy founded

, and the game was in its 45th revision (since they started counting) by Thanksgiving 2005. ''The Shab-al-Hiri Roach'' went on sale on March 10, 2006; the small press company Bully Pulpit printed only 100 copies, and the company ordered a second printing before all the copies sold out by May 12. Most of those 200 reprints went to the company's new partner,

Indie Press Revolution Indie Press Revolution (also referred to as "IPR") is a sales network that acts as a fulfillment house for publishers of indie role-playing games. It was founded in 2004 by Ed Cha of Open World Press and Brennan Taylor of Galileo Games. IPR r ...

, who got the game into wider circulation and sold their 180 copies by September 26.

References

External links

Official homepage
of The Shab-al-Hiri Roach
Review
at rpg.net
Original version
as released in the 2005 Game Chef competition {{DEFAULTSORT:Shab-al-Hiri Roach, The Indie role-playing games Role-playing games introduced in 2006