About Red Shirt Games

Our Story

The Beginning

The story of Red Shirt Games begins with the Ottawa Red Shirts, a small tabletop gaming club located in Canada’s capital. Over years of club get-togethers and gaming conventions, the group created several of their own games, mostly utilizing their innovative and original d12 System. Looking for a way to share the games they’d created, the group decided to found their own small publishing company, Red Shirt Games, in 1999. The team put together official rulebooks for the games they’d created and made them available to the public, using their personal connections with other gaming companies to source miniatures to accompany each release. The team stayed busy over the next decade and a half, releasing new games and expansions to their existing ones. These games were a hit at gaming conventions in the United States and Canada, including GenCon, Origins, and Ottawa’s own Cangames, and the Red Shirts became well-known for hosting fun and engaging events.

The Quiet Years

Unfortunately, nothing can last forever. External commitments and other factors led the Red Shirts to make the difficult decision to revert to a non-company hobby club in 2014. After fifteen years of operations, Red Shirt Games was shuttered. The Ottawa Red Shirts continued to run events at conventions every year, and kept digital copies of their games available for purchase, but otherwise Red Shirt Games stayed silent for more than half a decade.

The Resurrection

The membership of the Ottawa Red Shirts changed over the years, both before and after Red Shirt Games was founded. One of the people who joined the club during Red Shirt Games’ quiet years was Kyle Bentley, who would go on to found his own publishing company, Faceless Publishing, in 2019. Over years of game sessions and convention visits, he became good friends with Glen Simpson, one of the main organizes for the Ottawa Red Shirts. In 2021, Glen decided it was time to plan the future of Red Shirt Games. He made the decision to entrust the company’s games and assets to Faceless Publishing, and Kyle eagerly accepted the responsibility. Over the next year and a half, Kyle hunted down sources for miniatures for each game and worked with other Red Shirts to revitalize the company website. It was a long and sometimes difficult process, but in 2022, Faceless Publishing was excited to announce Red Shirt Games had been resurrected under their ownership.