Misspent Youth is a tabletop RPG about friendship, standing up to bullies, and changing the world. The game is for 4 to 6 people, one of whom plays The Authority, the force that's making the world a shitty place to live. The others all play Youthful Offenders (YOs), the only ones who can redeem the future from this pack of assholes trying to fuck it up.

Ever wanted to play The Hunger Games (but focused on friends), Clockwork Orange (but with heroic droogies), Hackers (but less goofy), Mad Max: Fury Road (but, again, with teenagers), or Avatar: The Last Airbender (but sci-fi)? This is the game for you. It's fucking awesome; if you want to see for yourself how awesome, check out the full text of issue 1.1 on my site, for free download.

The rules

Here's how Misspent Youth works: First you create the evil Authority as a group, then you create your characters together. At the start of each episode, you ask questions about the friendship between the characters, then you make up some villains for The Authority to employ in fucking up your lives. Each episode has a seven-scene structure which, in every complete session, gives you a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

When it comes to the place in each scene where The Authority tries to stomp you in the face with its massive, fuck-off boot, you have a Struggle. In a Struggle, you attempt to achieve your group's hope without letting The Authority get her objective. As you throw dice in a craps-like system, you can win it all for your side or fuck up your hopes for all your friends. But not to worry, if you roll a loss, you can sell out one of your convictions! You describe doing something so vile, heinous, and Authority-like that your friends are horrified with you. You win it for your side but now you're permanently more like The Authority!

Once the first YO has sold out every conviction, that's the last episode of the series. In each episode, you have the chance to change the world to make it a better place to live. If the last episode of the series ends and you haven't changed the world enough, a catastrophe that the group authors at the start of the game comes to pass, and it's your clique's fault for failing to stop it. But if you beat The Authority, you can fix the world.