So I’m a professional writer now, kind of.
A couple of months ago, Brennan Taylor (awesome name) asked me to write a campaign frame for his awesome supernatural story game, Mortal Coil. It’s for sale on RPGnow.com with photography by J. R. Blackwell and illustrations by Jennifer Rogers.
I’m doing a lot of work on The Flowers of Evil this week, and there are a lot of words going into my InDesign document. It’s hard to keep track of my design goals when I’m basically writing as I’m brainstorming, so I’m going to publish them here so you can hold me accountable.
If everything works out the way I want them to, the following things will be true:
I need to remember the following:
Okay. Several folks have expressed disappointment that I’ve discontinued development on Haunted House.
If you would like me to continue development of this game, please post in this thread. If I get enough responses, I’ll consider resuming the game design process.
I’m putting the design of Haunted House on hold, probably permanently. I don’t know if I have the game design chops to pull it off, and it’s possible that the particular combination of story game and competitive board game just can’t work with the kind of fiction that I want to emulate. It would work as a pure story game, provided the players were all on board and wanted the same kinds of things from the fiction.
Maybe I’ll revisit it in a year or so.
This is the first draft of a brochure about story gaming.
Actual play recordings of our current TSOY campaign.
The Finger of Azerel, Session 1 – Part 1
The Finger of Azerel, Session 1 – Part 2
You’ll need a pencil and paper (or a word processor) and a regular 6-sided die.
Write a 100-word paragraph detailing a setting and dramatic situation. You may use a pre-written scenario if you’d like.
Write a 50-word description of your character. From this description, choose 5 traits that you’d like to focus on and list them.
Play works like this:
Ask a question about the setting, situation, or other characters’ actions. List three possible answers to that question: one which is least likely to be true, one which is less likely to be true, one which is likely to be true. Roll the die and record the answer.
1 = the least likely answer is true
2, 3 = the less likely answer is true
4, 5, 6 = the likely answer is true
OR
If the question is along the lines of “what happens now?” then write four possible answers to that question: the worst possible outcome, a bad outcome, a favorable outcome, and the best possible outcome. Roll the die and record the answer.
1 = the worst possible outcome
2, 3 = a bad outcome
4, 5 = a favorable outcome
6 = the best possible outcome
If your trait listed could affect the outcome, then you can (if you’d like) add 1 to the result of the roll.
OR
If the question could have a yes or no answer:
For the answer,you must write six options to complete the sentence. List them from 1 to 6, roll the dice, and continue…
The answer is:
1 Yes, and…
2-3 Yes, but…
4-5 No, and..
6 No, but…
and then for the “ands” or “buts” define then using the least likely/less likely/most likely list.
Tips:
Don’t write anything as a possible outcome or answer that you don’t think would be a cool addition to the story.
I hacked together a no-prep story game this weekend. It’s just a couple of pages, and it assumes that you are familiar with a particular type of roleplaying game (Primetime Adventures rather than Dungeons & Dragons), but it’s ready for playtesting.
If you playtest it, give me a shout and let me know how it went.
These are actual play posts from a Primetime Adventures game run over a year ago.
Last night, Will, Jared and I began a Primetime Adventures season of indeterminate length. After brainstorming a healthy number of ideas, we finally settled on a show about time-traveling thrill seekers searching for the ultimate prize: happiness.
Brainstorming
We began our ideation by brainstorming concepts that’s we’d like to play:
After an interval we began crosspollenating these ideas by mixing them together or adding Zombies to the mix. Among the mongrel premises we concocted were Zombies in Jazz Age Paris, and Cats vs. Aliens.
The real gem was found, however, by mixing almost all of these concepts together (I don’t think we quite integrated cats). Our final concept is the still tentatively titled Sailing the Seas of Time.
Setting
In the middle of an unknown ocean is an island built on the wreckage of lost ships from all eras. This island is known as The Turtle. It is a lawless place, ruled by the violent and the clever, and is populated by the survivors of lost ships, both seafaring and spacefaring. Whenever a vessel is lost at sea without explanation, it will eventually drift into sight of The Turtle.
The Turtle exists in a temporal limbo. A few days out to sea, there is a storm which encircles the entire island. If one sails in any direction, eventually he will find a port to in which to dock, for there are an infinite number of ports. The catch is this: they are all ports to the same city for a given ship, only in different times.
Time Ships
Time Ships are gradually pieced together from the wreckage of ships lost in the storm of time. Each addition to the ship results in opening up new routes through time, while closing others. Some believe that choosing the right combination of parts is an art, others believe it is a science, but most believe that it is completely random.
The trade in salvage, especially from newly wrecked ships, is fierce and highly competive.
Unobtainium
Time Ships are fueled by a strange substance known simply as Unobtainium. Its source is unknown, but somehow there are semi-regular shipments to various bosses on The Turtle.
Prolonged exposure to unobtainium causes a type of brain poisoning which manifests in symptoms such as increasingly frequent blackouts, then insatiable carnal lust, then cannibalistic hunger, and finally post-mortem animation.
The White Fairy
The temporary antidote for Unobtainium poisoning is a distillation of an opium poppy native to The Turtle. This distillation is known as The White Fairy or The White Lady, and is administered by smoking or injection into the bloodstream. The poppy grows quite freely on the island, but the method for producing its distillate is a very well kept secret.
Use of The White Fairy is quite addictive itself, and causes hallucinations and an overall sense of euphoria. At most, an addict can survive a week without the drug before going through withdrawal. The detox period for someone addicted to the substance is usually fatal, and those who survive it invariably succumb to the symptoms of Unobtainium poisoning.
Xanadu
Legends tell of a perfect city, a hedonist’s paradise, called Xanadu. In Xanadu, a man (or woman) may find everything that he has ever desired, or at the very least forget that he ever desired anything he doesn’t find. It is said that with the perfect combination of parts, and perhaps some forbidden knowledge, one may sail into the Port of Xanadu. Most people consider Xanadu a myth at best, and a dangerous obsession at worst.
The Peregrine/The Albatross
A particularly well equipped Time Ship, owned (temporarily, at least) by Professor Marlin.
A professor of curiosities, and the current owner of The Peregrine.
A jaded adventurer who has “been there, done that.”
The lost lover of Professor Marlin.
Sister of Helen, and the Professor’s intellectual nemesis.
Professor Marlin’s feckless student.
Professor Marlin’s humble, faithful manservant. A master of martial arts.
A small time con-man and Peter Rullar’s informant.
A major crime boss on The Turtle who deals in Unobtainium and The White Lady.
The Dozen
A band of mercenaries who number 12. Since the pay and the benefits are so good (full medical and dental, and if it comes to it…retirement), employment as a member is highly sought after. A current member must die in order to create a vacancy.
The Director
The head of The Marlin Institute for the Research of Curiosities.
The Director’s beautiful and deadly second.
The Dozen board the Peregrine, but are quickly subdued by the crew.
There is a meeting between Peter, The Professor, and The Man in White. TMiW declares that he has kidnapped (name goes here), a tavern-wench sweetheart of Peter’s to ensure that the Peregrine delivers a shipment of Unobtanium to TMiW.
Peter squeezes Pepe for information, and is told that the girl was indeed kidnapped and taken away in a car matching the description of the one owned by TMiW.
There is a cut scene in which it is revealed that The Marlin Institute, founded by the Professor, decides to hunt him down in the past and reaquire the Gyroscopic X-Ring for an exhibit honoring him in the future. The exibit will be great for fundraising for The Institute.
The Professor is seduced by Sophie Moreau, and she ties him up in his salon, then steals the Gyroscopic X-Ring. But why does she spare his life?
Next week…
…a cat fight between Summer and Sophie, Peter is impaled (once again) with a harpoon, and crosshairs aimed at the green-haired head of Helen De Winter.
…and a comment from Jared
The Dozen board the Peregrine, but are quickly subdued by the crew.
There is a meeting between Peter, The Professor, and The Man in White. TMiW declares that he has kidnapped (name goes here), a tavern-wench sweetheart of Peter’s to ensure that the Peregrine delivers a shipment of Unobtanium to TMiW.
Peter squeezes Pepe for information, and is told that the girl was indeed kidnapped and taken away in a car matching the description of the one owned by TMiW.
There is a cut scene in which it is revealed that The Marlin Institute, founded by the Professor, decides to hunt him down in the past and reaquire the Gyroscopic X-Ring for an exhibit honoring him in the future. The exibit will be great for fundraising for The Institute.
The Professor is seduced by Sophie Moreau, and she ties him up in his salon, then steals the Gyroscopic X-Ring. But why does she spare his life?
Next week…
…a cat fight between Summer and Sophie, Peter is impaled (once again) with a harpoon, and crosshairs aimed at the green-haired head of Helen De Winter.
In this last showing of the Storm of Time, picked up from Part 1 of the pilot, we open in the Rumpus Room at the Golden Dragon. The Professor had gone there to search out why he found himself bound for trouble, after wasting the time of a genial prostitute. The lads begin a ruckus when Rullar attempted to cross the threshold, in spite of the warning Cheng and Ming had given after what happened last time. After a certain amount of whanging and banging, the Professor, a highly valued customer, ended in the basement bound to be tortured (again, see part 1). Rullar closes his night in the street. The torture consists of, first, injection of the Professor with a horrifically potent nerve toxin that enhanced tactile sensation, particularly pain, by 10,000 times. Then, feathers.
We learn the next day that the Professor successfully remembers, even in spite the Forget Me paste he’d ingested to end last night, that he had spilled his guts about the location of the Gyroscopic X-Ring. This was due to having dosed himself every morning with a cocktail of prophylactic poison. (”Here, Mako!”) Or course, being the Professor, he lied to Terror Lily [actually, I don't recall her name], chief courtesan and expert interrogator of the Floating Dragon, and fingered out the Man in White as the present possessor of the G. X-Ring.
After Marlin and Rullar arrive at the Man in White’s creepy palatial pad, Rullar in supporting sniper position of course, the Professor just wanders in. As he and his associates make their way, Rullar notes that who should be chatting conspiratorily with the Man in White but the Professor’s rival (Nemesis according to PTA jargon) and assistant Summer de Winter, sister of Dr. Marlin’s long (?) lost love. After an ineffectual duel of wits, the smell of smoke from downstairs heightens and the tension tightens as Cheng and Ming’s hapless pajama clad force assaults the penthouse. The Professor, armed with his trademark nonlethal cane, dashingly dances to the sword song of the Man in White as Rullar kills everything else that moves. At last the Professor stumbles on a staircase, catches himself on a chandelier, and fumbles his parry just enough so that the Man in White’s backsword slashes him over the hip. Incidentally, the pain intensifier of the day before has enough zing to incapacitate the good Professor.
Just when all seems lost, the Man in White falls to one of Rullar’s enormous gun p0rnish rifle bullets. The white clad villain has only time to gasp one last cryptic phrase, which the Professor of course immediately recognizes being, after all, a Professor of Curiousities such as this.
Meanwhile, Rullar rappels in to save the only woman he’s ever loved, or at least been more interested than she, from certain death in the conflagration about to ensue. He of course strips her of her fetters after finishing the foolish henchman who dares to stand in his way, of course snatching the mysterious file innocently sitting by itself next to her. Only after the lads retreat from the flaming building do the police show up, just in time for the feckless crew to be covered in immobilizing, anti inflammable foam. After Rullar and Marlin quietly discuss the situation with the importunate officers, leaving no more than three of the cops with broken bones, the police sergeant–who turns out to be Pepe, Rullar’s snitch!–of course sets them at their freedom.
They return to ship, only to find a cleaning robot escapes a closet, piercing Rullar near to perishing. Meanwhile the Marlin Institute’s spy Sophie’s on board! Summer gives chase, and is abducted. We cut to Sophie and Summer fighting desperately at the far future Marlin Institute.
The curtain falls, with the audience wondering:
What did the Man in White say to Professor Marlin?
Will Rullar’s only love ever return his affection, or even warm his cold, calloused heart?
Will the crew of the Peregrine ever leave port?
These questions, and more, will be answered in Season 1 of Storm of Time!
Sneak Peek from Next Season (Season 1):
1. The plucky lads, and associates, are in the midst of a monstrous horde of zombies, blasting away. How will they ever escape the wrath of the moaning hordes of undead?
2. Professor Marlin berates the cleaning robot that narrowly missed ending Mr. Rullar by surprise harpooning: “Fail again, and be eternally discombobulated!”
3. The Director to Sophie from a darkened room in the Marlin Institute: “My dear, bring the liniment. My thigh is aching.”
This is a literary concept sketch for Grim Noir, a game John Lammers and I are developing:
It’s tough making a living these days, especially since that day eight years ago when the fog rolled in and never rolled out again. Anybody who went too far into it didn’t come out again, so eventually folks wised up and stopped trying. Sometimes folks will tell stories about a guy they know who knew a guy who came back, but you never meet him. I guess it’s their pathetic form of hope.
It’s almost always raining, and overcast is about as close to sunshine as I’ve seen in a long time. Except when the moon is full. You can always see the moon when it is full.
The train still runs, and makes deliveries, but it rarely has any passengers. Sometimes someone will book a ticket, board the train, and they’ll never be seen again. It’s considered a particularly dramatic form of suicide. Occasionally, some stranger will step down onto the platform, but they always have the same pale skin and empty eyes. It’s like there’s no one in there.
And you don’t even want to go out to the hobo jungle.
Before I found my calling, I had a job loading and unloading the trains. It paid well, really well, but it creeped me out. No one talked to each other or looked anyone in the eye. It was like everyone had their own secret shame that they’d reveal just by looking someone in the eye. As soon as I met the right guy who knew the right guy, I borrowed enough money to set out my shingle as a private dick, and I turned in my notice.
You can imagine what being cooped up in the same town for eight years with a bunch of scumbags and lowlifes can do to a guy. Well, whatever you imagine, you’re probably right.
Then she walked in.
There’s always a dame…
It’s not really a story (and shouldn’t be judged as such), just a bunch of sentences to remind myself of the kind of atmosphere and situtations I want to work in.
