About the Designer

I am a writer, and I have a mission.

I created RED-SHIFT because I want to use science fiction to explore how people live inside systems—economic systems, political systems, technological systems, criminal justice systems, military systems, and the quieter social systems that shape what choices people believe they have.

I did not arrive at that subject academically.

I arrived there by living and working inside some very different institutions.

I spent time in the Marine Corps, although I do not claim the title of Marine. After that, I had a couple of professional kickboxing fights. I lost every one of them. The morning after a fight usually felt like I had been hit by a car, and college suddenly started looking like an excellent career choice.

That eventually led me into systems engineering.

For about ten years, I worked for a defense contractor around complex technical systems, formal requirements, procedures, testing, and organizations where a seemingly small decision could produce consequences far beyond the person who made it.

Then I went into criminal justice.

For roughly fifteen years, I worked as a Community Corrections Officer, much of that time supervising forestry and natural-resource work projects. In practical terms, I was part corrections officer and part lumberjack. I supervised crews, ran projects, solved problems in the field, worked inside government rules, and spent years alongside people whose lives were directly affected by the criminal justice system.

Later, I became a probation officer.

I managed a caseload and worked with courts, attorneys, treatment providers, law enforcement, government agencies, and community partners. That gave me another perspective on institutions: how decisions are made, how policies become procedures, how procedures affect individuals, and how consequences can keep accumulating long after the original decision has passed.

I also came to believe strongly in criminal justice reform.

Working inside a system does not require believing that every part of that system is correct. Institutions can perform necessary functions while still creating incentives, rules, inequities, and outcomes that deserve to be challenged.

That tension is at the heart of my writing.

RED-SHIFT is not an argument disguised as a game. I am not interested in telling players what conclusions they are supposed to reach.

I am interested in putting people inside difficult systems and asking:

What do you do now?

What do you do when every available choice costs something?

What happens when the law is legitimate but the outcome is wrong?

What happens when an institution is necessary but also dangerous?

What happens when money, authority, technology, scarcity, loyalty, and survival all pull in different directions?

And what happens after the decision, when somebody has to live with the consequences?

That is the mission behind RED-SHIFT.

It is a tabletop roleplaying game about hard choices in a dangerous future.

The characters are ordinary, skilled people doing extraordinary things—not because they are chosen, invincible, or destined to save the universe, but because they have a job to do and somebody has to do it.

The technology may be futuristic.

The problems are human.

You still have limited time.

You still have limited resources.

Money still matters.

Institutions make mistakes

People suffer consequences.

Power still affects who gets choices and who lives with the consequences.

And every decision leaves something behind.

That is why I created RED-SHIFT.