Pre-Game Discussion. Laying the Foundations.

[Metal Fatigue]

No one has so far picked up the 2 Strings that Summer has to give to someone who saw through her invented background. I'd prefer to give those to a PC—Seth, maybe?—but I'll give them to an NPC if I must.

[MonkeyWrench]

No one has so far picked up the 2 Strings that Summer has to give to someone who saw through her invented background. I'd prefer to give those to a PC—Seth, maybe?—but I'll give them to an NPC if I must.

I must have missed that, sure, I'll take the strings. Seth's sense of smell would probably pick her out anyway. Same goes for the Ghost, and the Fae honestly... But I already have a string on James.

[Keehnelf]

I could also take that one, I don't have strings on anyone yet

[Metal Fatigue]

Honestly I think James is the least likely to have seen through Summer's backstory, being as self-centered as he is. :D

[Keehnelf]

Hehe, true enough. Remember that his self-centered nature comes from this uncanny and uncontrollable ability he now has to see through to people's inner natures. Just because he neither understands nor intends to use this ability in a positive or meaningful way doesn't mean it doesn't exist

[Metal Fatigue]

Hey MC, we forgot to highlight stats! How's anyone but me going to get XP?

[Q.Q Elf]

Hey MC, we forgot to highlight stats! How's anyone but me going to get XP?

Ooops!

Okay, everyone look at the character sheets.

Who has the MOST skins on your character? Please ask that Player to "highlight" one of your stats... Hot, Cold, Volatile, Dark. (An explanation of why you chose that stat to highlight would be appropriate.)

At that point, I (the MC) will highlight another one of the stats on your character's sheet... for a total of 2 stats highlighted per character.

Why?

Whenever your character uses that Stat, you mark Experience.

You want to highlight stats on other sheets that you want them to use to tell the story... creating cool situations or problems, or otherwise making the world cooler & better to play around in.

So...

Looking at our cast.
Metal Fatigue, Summer has the most strings on James Goolian. Please highlight one of the stats on the Fae sheet.

Does Summer have one on the Ghost? Go ahead and highlight one on the Ghost sheet anyway.

Keehnelf, James has the most strings on the Werewolf, Seth Varron. Please highlight one of the stats on the Werewolfsheet.

I don't see one on the Hollow. MonkeyWrench, highlight one on the Hollow sheet because you're probably not at work right now.

[Metal Fatigue]

James, please seduce everyone and everything. Highlight Hot. (that means you already earned an XP from turning on Mrs. Meecher)

Clarence, sometimes the obvious choice is the right one. Highlight Dark.

[Keehnelf]

Seth's goal will be to play it cool but it's gonna be tough: highlight volatile, please.

[Q.Q Elf]

Seth's goal will be to play it cool but it's gonna be tough: highlight volatile, please.

And I say highlight Hot because I can see the collision course with Victoria, potentially.

(I have highlighted them on the sheet for the Werewolf.

[Q.Q Elf]

James, please seduce everyone and everything. Highlight Hot. (that means you already earned an XP from turning on Mrs. Meecher)

And I highlighted Volatile because I want to see him flip out and wreck shit. And the town needs some kind of justice & order. More than the Price family has given, anyway.

(I have highlighted both on the Fae's sheet)

[Q.Q Elf]

Clarence, sometimes the obvious choice is the right one. Highlight Dark.

Damn. For me, the question is, how will Rukellian play it?

I can go with a safe choice and highlight Volatile because that's easy to play... but I don't see Clarence as a vengeful Ghost.

Cold is obvious for a Ghost, but are you going to use Shut Someone Down? I don't see it right now.

Hot is what everyone has. This is the most squee/squirm, I think. Getting Vanessa out of her shit is a problem that Cold isn't going to fix.

Okay, Clarence also highlights Hot. Because, damnit, everyone is going to push it this game.

(I have highlighted those stats on the Ghost's character sheet.)

[Q.Q Elf]

Regarding dice rolling...

I guess I could get it set up here, but part of it is messed up & needs manual activation to get an ID for this specific game board... so I try NOT to do that.

I do like Invisible Castle... which Metal Fatigue used.

So, for this game, please pick a roller that I can easily verify. I don't know that I'd check every result, but the ability to do so would be nice.

[Rukellian]

Clarence, sometimes the obvious choice is the right one. Highlight Dark.

Damn. For me, the question is, how will Rukellian play it?

I can go with a safe choice and highlight Volatile because that's easy to play... but I don't see Clarence as a vengeful Ghost.

Cold is obvious for a Ghost, but are you going to use Shut Someone Down? I don't see it right now.

Hot is what everyone has. This is the most squee/squirm, I think. Getting Vanessa out of her shit is a problem that Cold isn't going to fix.

Okay, Clarence also highlights Hot. Because, damnit, everyone is going to push it this game.

(I have highlighted those stats on the Ghost's character sheet.)

This was my line of thinking too, creepy

[MonkeyWrench]

I will be highlighting Summers Dark. Because I wanna see some hollow stuff go down.

[MonkeyWrench]

And by the way, I found my post where I put the characters avatar pictures. I know Q.Q Didn't like just posting them via IMG since they may be taking away from the authors so here are those links.

http://s3.zerochan.net/Trafalgar.Law.240.1257624.jpg - During the day him being the loner type, just trying to stay out of peoples business but still protecting his friends and family

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/ ... 57oktr.jpg - during the night and near the full moon to a more severe degree

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/ ... 57oktr.jpg - the transformation...

[Q.Q Elf]

I will be highlighting Summers Dark. Because I wanna see some hollow stuff go down.

Okays.

Not having the Skin pdf on my phone or tablet, and without a saved copy of the actual character sheet for Summer...

I thought about Volatile, but we have plenty of that. Hot is also pretty overrepresented. I think it's more fun to have Summer be the voice of reason (whether she figures out what that is).

So I guess I will highlight Cold.

I may reconsider when I get home and actually look at skin sheets.

[Rukellian]

Okay, after giving it some thought, I think I've come up with a unique form of death for Clarence. The death was caused by a tragic accident, but only through Clarence's eyes. You see, he found himself dying in almost every way possible, witnessing this as an observer. Strangulation, hanging of a rope, stabbing from a stranger, being buried alive, drowning, being burned alive, getting hit by a car, being mauled by a wild creature, the list goes on... How can a normal person die so many times you ask, and witness themselves dying as well each and every time? The answer is a drug that Clarence took, 'stairway to heaven'. The drug took complete control of a person's five senses and sends them into an hallucinatory trance, making them believe that they are dying horrible deaths. What's the appeal to such a drug? It triggers a Dopamine effect in the brain, giving the person the ultimate high that only comes with death. It is also said to be the ultimate painkiller, being able to fix almost any kind of pain...

Months ago, in game, Clarence was going through a bad spurt of depression, not being able to cope with the bullying he was subject to, the false mask of a nice guy that he was forced to wear, and the idea that he was alone in this world with no friends or family to turn to. He wanted to break free from all of this, if only for a moment. Vanessa was with him at the time and was going through a depression of her own. Both agreed to take the drug and see if it would truly make their pain go away. Clarence went first and Vanessa watched. Clarence did not wake up from the experience... What followed aftewards, only Vanessa truly knows. One thing is for sure though, seeing Clarence die like that scared her to the core, made her give up on the idea of drugs and turned towards something else to ease her pain and now guilty conscious. the pleasures of the body.

Mr. Finney caught on to this change of behaviour in Vanessa quickly and took advantage of her broken state. One thing lead to another and Vanessa ended up having to go through an abortion. This was the final piece that made her snap. She couldn't take life anymore and tried to end it, hence her two weeks of hospitalization. It was during the hospitalization that Clarence appeared once more, unaware of the fact that he was actually dead and that the drug killed him. The memory of taking it was blocked out of his memory and all he could remember was Vanessa's dangerous depression. He wanted to help her and so he visited her during the recovery process.

Vanessa was shocked to see him again, considering that the last time she saw him was when she was burying his corpse in secret. Surprise, sorrow, and joy filled her, though the joy was a foreign emotion to her now; she didn't recognize it. Maybe, she imagined it all? That's what she told herself, and that's what Clarence told himself when he recalled the event in a hazy nightmare. Not knowing why he had such a horrific dream in the first place, he quickly forgot about it, like most unpleasant things in life. Vanessa could not forget though, she did not have the luxury of doing so. Clarence's death haunts her to this day, especially considering that he appears quite alive and living like nothing even happened, and seems closer to her more than ever before. This scares her...

----

Because of the way that Clarence died, this should hopefully make it easier for him to trigger his Unresolved Trauma ghost move, casting blame on those who he thinks is cause of one of his many hallucinated/simulated deaths. And because this campaign is sure to be filled with death and deathly situations, this trauma of his will kick in a lot. I hope that this will be enough for the MC to work with and have lots of fun in conducting. If you need more to go off of, let me know.

I intentionally left out the reason why Clarence came back as a ghost. I wanted this to be something that he would figure out in-game on his own, something that I as a player would have to figure out as well. Should be an interesting process to be sure. I realize that the ghost skin is a transitional stage in life and death. The ghost remains until he is either able to resolve the problem that is anchoring him to this world or is banished forcibly. If I set up his reason for staying connected to this world, his plotline may converge too quickly towards that end, that resolving of his problem. If it comes down to that, I may have to roll up another skin to keep going.

I do have an idea as to what his anchor is in this world, and it is a very tough problem to sort through, contradictory almost in its nature. In order to be at peace, he must accomplish something, but in doing so, he loses that something he gained in the end. Perhaps one of my character's problems is that he doesn't want to be at peace later on, that he would rather suffer than having gained what he wanted only to have it ripped away from him! I so want to take this route, and yet I don't, I'm so conflicted right now

[Q.Q Elf]

That will work. It might contradict some of the stuff we've laid out, but with some hand-wavium, it all can work together.

Use it. Use it to get your character moving into strange places.

[Rukellian]

That will work. It might contradict some of the stuff we've laid out, but with some hand-wavium, it all can work together.

Use it. Use it to get your character moving into strange places.

May I ask which parts were hand-waved and contradictory to what has already been established? I tried to make it using the available information we've all put together, but I may have overlooked something and may want to edit it to better reflect what has happened in this campaign world.