Epistolary
ThoughtCheck:
Front page of the Whitechester Lantern, September the 21st, 1912.
TRAGEDY AT SEA!
Dateline: Inlet Beach --Beachgoers were shocked this morning as a Ruritanian merchant vessel, arriving seemingly out of nowhere on a calm, windless sea, abruptly ran aground, burying itself fifty feet ashore on a popular stretch of Inlet Beach at 7:13 this morning. Witnesses described the event as “shocking, unprecedented,” and claimed that “the d---ed thing showed up out of nowhere.”
Officials reported to the scene within minutes. Police Constable Thomas Quincy had this to say: “It was pandemonium, pure pandemonium. People were running, screaming, the boat had caught fire where a lamp had hit the deck… the only thing what was calm was the water, which didn’t even have a wake behind it. Took us an hour to see that nobody was hurt, calm down the men and comfort the women, before we could even see to the vessel itself.”
No Whitechester residents were injured in the crash, though eight have been admitted to the hospoital, citing “shock” and “distress.”
The ship, the Var Brasto, had been reported missing after departing Kolayoh two months earlier, and had been assumed sunk or stolen. No crew or corpses were found aboard, and the log made no indication of what cause the crew to abandon, bar a cryptic final entry: “September 2: IT LOOKS LIKE A MAN, BUT IT’S A BEAST. MY THOUGHTS FOREVER WITH YOU, KATRINA.”
Officials have declined to comment on the potential causes of this incident.
-----
The name: Epistolary
The story: You are members of a small town which is being hunted by a monster which can take the form of a human.
The conceit: The story is told in an epistolary format, as journal entries or letters written between the PCs and as newspaper reports handed down from the GM. You needn’t actually WRITE letters, but you will narrate in monologues that begin “Dear Whomever.”
The twist: Is one of you actually the monster? (Hint: yeah, probably.)
The inspiration: Dracula, arguably the finest horror novel of all time.
The ingredients: Lantern (informing both the newspaper’s central role and the time period) and Mimic (the monster). Additionally, a focus on investigation, culled from the random thread: http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=18687.0. The last ingredient isn't quite gelled yet, though of my other random threads, one (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=20387.0) has some ideas abut chargen I might work with, specifically with regards to the importance of backstory.
(Of my other threads, one I found unhelpful (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=9213.0), and the other (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=12079.0) features both time limits and giving up, and thus can be folded in if necessary.)
The theme: Three-part: first, it’s meant to be a coherent one-session narrative. Secondly, Whitechester is the last chance for the PCs to stop the monster before it is loosed upon the world. Finally, the nature of the monster and its abilities is a secret, only to be revealed when the game has progressed… though I may elect to have a handful of different monsters to allow for SOME replayability.
The mechanics: Hahahaha I have no idea. Some sort of secret bidding… perhaps something inspired by the Battlestar Galactica game or another “one of you is secretly evil” game… perhaps something as simple as a note passed to the GM to inform him of whether your ‘letter’ is the truth or a lie, or perhaps a method of flagging questionable actions in another player’s narrative for later review. This… this I gotta think about.
jackson_tegu:
This looks rollicking so far, which is a cool tack for a "one of us is secretly evil" game. Usually they're so grim.
And by usually, i mean i only know a few.
I love your voice! Write the game that way and i'll be hella stoked. I mean, charmed in the utmost.
mrteapot:
"Doctor" fits very nicely into a Victorian narrative. Doctor characters fit the genre and characters like Dr. Van Helsing could be really helpful during a horrific investigation sort of thing.
ThoughtCheck:
Quote from: jackson_tegu on April 07, 2012, 04:40:51 PM
This looks rollicking so far, which is a cool tack for a "one of us is secretly evil" game. Usually they're so grim.
And by usually, i mean i only know a few.
I love your voice! Write the game that way and i'll be hella stoked. I mean, charmed in the utmost.
Haha, thanks! I shall do my best to make sure you are hella stoked come the final product.
Quote from: mrteapot on April 07, 2012, 06:13:01 PM
"Doctor" fits very nicely into a Victorian narrative. Doctor characters fit the genre and characters like Dr. Van Helsing could be really helpful during a horrific investigation sort of thing.
Hmm... I am considering character archetypes, of which "Doctor" would most likely be one (along with "monster" of course) and what else? Aristocrat comes to mind, along with a Businessperson, a Captain, a Student, a Madman, a Servant... worthy options to consider.
I've been having a think about the mechanics in an epistolary format, and my casual plan is this: at any point during a player's narration, another player may hand a card to the GM. At this point, all other players, including the narrator, may hand the GM a card as well; each player has a hand that includes several cards which say either "success" or "failure," and a few which say something like "I arrive on the scene," or "a clue is discovered." In addition, the GM draws a card or two from her own deck, which has successes, failures, and perhaps a few surprising developments, just to keep everything a little in the dark as to who played what.
The GM counts the cards; if the failures outnumber the successes, the character fails. The GM tells the player the results, and if there are any other effects ("You failed at the task, but as you did, the Doctor arrived on the scene," or something like that). At this point, the narrating player resumes, factoring in the GM's edicts.
Each archetype may have specific, powerful cards to use... the Monster has cards that include "A beast attacks from the shadows," and the Student has "You realize where you've seen this before" or something of that nature. Each archetype has powers they can use as well, in given circumstances... the Servant can try any physical task twice, because he was raised to work hard, and the Aristocrat can try any social task twice, because he's got money out his ears, etc.
As for the nature of the cards, I suspect each player will have a small hand and deck to work with, so at any point they have limited options, but the cards the hand the GM come back to them to get shuffled back in to their deck, so they don't lose any particular powers.
mcdaldno:
ThoughtCheck,
The cards thing is really cool. As you started to describe it, I had in the back of my head a voice saying, "That wouldn't work, because how would the GM know who played that 'X arrives on the scene' card in the first place?" And then I kept reading, and realized you were thinking about having a specific deck for each character. And I thought, "But, then the assembly prep for this game would be so labour intensive, with 3-5 decks of cards to assemble!"
And then I finished reading and had an idea. Maybe each archetype starts with only a hand of 4-5 "special powers" cards (and no deck). So each player has a hand without any Successes/Failures in it, to begin with. There's a big Successes/Failures deck (maybe with a few generic "twists" cards in it, too!) in the center of the table, which everyone shares. This could even be a simple deck of playing cards, with black=success and red=failure and ace=twist.
Whenever a player plays a card, they replenish their hand by taking a new card from the top of the Successes/Failures deck. But if the card they played was one of their "special powers," they can instead choose to retrieve that card. So at the beginning, people can't really succeed or fail at tracking down the monster - they can only show up, demonstrate their role in the community, etc. Its only after they've begun to let go of their "But I'm just a helpless aristocrat" identity that they become capable of actually succeeding in stopping this monstrous creature.
Anyways, that's a thought. I originally was going to suggest it because it'd cut down on needing multiple decks, but in typing this out I started to think it had some cool thematic content. Use it or not, as you wish!
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