First Official Session

I ran the first official session last night. This is the session in which all the PCs met, and it was interesting to say the least. =) In attendance at the start of the session were Sami, Sandor, Colt, Chris, and Tasha - Richard was late, and I started without him - he arrived after the PCs met, but before they'd progressed out of the Rotunda.

It started in the Rotunda. Each of the PCs noticed that as they opened the door of their cell, they found that 5 others doors were opening into the next room as well, and out of these doors stepped the rest of the party. One more door, this one painted light blue, remained locked against them.

Sandor found immediately that the cell phone he'd destroyed, but held on to the charger for, began growing a new cell phone, almost organically. Freaky...

Largely, the group worried themselves with their items, and how to get out of the room they were now locked in. Some frustration at all the locked doors was encountered, which is understandable. I need to find more ways to hold up the PCs while they work these puzzles.

Sami began passing around the mirror she received with her makeup case, and the PCs began to study their features. Chris, however, saw a little bit more in the mirror than he'd expected - when he looked at the dome light in the ceiling through the mirror, it wasn't a light at all - it was a light-emitting eyeball, the size of a basketball, embedded in the ceiling. And it was watching them...

I had hoped that the PCs would begin to give each other names, but this didn't happen. So I had nametag stickers slide in from under the door as a hint. Everyone (except Tasha, of course!) named themselves, and a few minutes later, the door clicked open.

From the Rotunda, the PCs entered the Lobby. This is a small office lobby, with a drop ceiling, crappy office carpet, a receptionist desk (with phone), a small desk chair, an elevator, a maintenance door, and a glass wall for the entrance. Upon completely entering the room, the door shut itself, looking (from this side of the door) like a glass door. Outside is pitch black, and nothing is revealed by shining the flashlight out. Through the mirror, the glass wall looks like a wall of flesh, quivering slightly...

Sandor found a power outlet for his phone, plugged it in, got it turned on, but discovered a 15-digit security code was locking the device.

The elevator doesn't appear to work, and the maintenance door is, of course, locked. The telephone, though not plugged in, appears to have a dial tone and a rotary dialer. After some trial and error, Colt worked out that there was a code in the dialing - 7757253825. After he dialed this code, the phone rang loudly, then went silent - and the maintenance door clicked unlocked. Everyone filed in to the next room...

Which is a hall / stairway. Plastered all over the red brick walls here were maintenance signs, all pointing to a door at the bottom of the stairs. Almost immediately, Chris detected the trick - some of these stairs teleport you back to the top. Once they learned this, they used the mirror to see that some of the stairs glow, and those glowing stairs are the ones that teleport the stepper. Using a piece of Colt's chalk, they marked all the stairs that were safe to touch, and took note of the sequence of stairs that aren't. That sequence, Sandor realized, had 15 digits, and did indeed work - Sandor's phone let him in to the main menu.

Colt and Sandor looked through the phone before they continued on into the next room. They discovered that most of the apps on the phone were either broken or further locked, but one app in particular worked just fine, for the most part: the Notes app. There was even a note waiting for them:

To the finder
You’re in the phone, if you’re reading this - that’s good. Means you’re relatively smart, not brain-dead. Yet, anyway. Wander around this place long enough and that might change, but I really hope not.

I’m utterly alone, now. Last of this group of strangers. I’m a stranger myself as well. Such a short life, apparently, but the fact that I’m writing this without having learned the language may be a testament to whatever life I lived before I came upon this place.

I hope I was a decent person, at least.

I’ve tried to document things. In the phone, and in this world. It seems the things we did have some impact here, but I can’t explain it. Whistles could, if he were still alive.

Going to die soon, I think. Starving to death. Found plenty of water, but food is scarce. Already ate the others. Is that really what they want? I know they watched me do it.

I hope they don’t erase this. For your sake, not mine, for I am lost.

Sandor and Colt also noticed the bold letters in the note - they spell out a phrase: "Don't trust what you see. They lie."

They continued on into the maintenance room. This room was a large, completely dark room filled with what look like internal combustion electric generators. A large system of pipes worked their way from the ceiling to each of the generators, with each generator sprouting three pipes from their tops. Through the mirror, the only change was the pipes, which became massive undulating arteries. The noise in the room was near deafening levels.

Tasha and Sandor began walking around the room clockwise, while Sami, Chris, and Richard walked counter-clockwise, hoping to meet at the far wall. Colt stayed behind at the door to keep it open and maintain their origin. They found that the room is square in shape, and that there are 10 rows of 10 generators each - 100 generators. They also found an elevator, but this one's button had been torn off, and through the mirror it appeared that the hole was dripping pus or some other sort of gore.

After messing with the elevator to no avail, Tasha decided to walk through the generators back to where Colt was standing. On her way, she felt a presence near her, and some sort of... creature... began to breathe down her neck. She stiffened, but continued walking toward Colt.

Chris was the first to actually see the creature. He drew his flashlight toward the source of a strange noise, and saw it: a 4-foot tall quadrupedal creature of clearly alien origin. It resembled a cross between a large lizard and a small bear, covered in a rotting amalgam of skin, hair, scales, and bone plating. Two great fangs protruded from the creature's mouth, and its seven eyes, strewn randomly across its face, darted wildly and blindly across the room. Green liquid drooled down from the creature's maw. Perhaps the strangest feature, however, was the large red elevator button that had been shoved into the creature's forehead.

The light from the flashlight seemed to hurt it - smoke immediately plumed from the creature's hide, and it disappeared from the beam of light with a high-pitched cry. From there, the creature stalked, largely unseen, through the room, learning the PCs. It singled out Chris, as the one who'd hurt it, and while he was in total darkness, it grasped him by the arm and began to lead him deeper into the field of generators. He didn't resist, for fear of being mauled, until the creature threw him against one of the generators. He turned his flashlight on and scared it out of the range of his light.

By this time, Colt had realized that there was a lightswitch near the entrance door (non-functional), and Tasha had found one generator that wasn't on. I believe it was Sandor who pieced together the idea that the broken generator powered the lights, so the party decided to fix the machine. Richard found that he was particularly skilled in repairing engines, so he got the machine running. The room slowly began to fill with light, for Colt had left the switch on. As the room lit, the creature began shrieking (in three voices at once), and by the time the light from above flooded the room, it was dead and melting into a puddle. The only solid bit that remained was the elevator button, which Tasha picked up and installed on the elevator...

I've left a good deal of stuff out - there was a lot of conversation, a lot of ideas tried, and more to the creature encounter - but this is the highlights. Tasha spent a great deal of time chronicling the game, so I may steal her notes and update this post later. Overall, the game was received with much enjoyment. I managed to freak everybody out, especially with the encounter in the complete dark. Even got compliments from Dennis, who had played in the previous incarnation of this game (and hated it, lol).

I can't wait for next Sunday... I get to elaborate on some of the themes I've introduced.

Three more intros run, and we're all set.

I've run Richard (who joined the game at the last minute), Sami, and Sandor through the introduction.

Sami went first. Her item was a small case of stage makeup, including a mirror. She spent most of her time examining the room and the case, until the lock clicked and she opened the door...

Sandor followed. I've never gamed with Sandor before, so I wasn't sure what to expect (which is part of the reason why I ran these little mini-sessions in the first place). He woke up, looked around the room, and started trying to escape, of course. His item, which he found quickly, was a cell phone. I say was because during the course of trying to open the door, he smashed it and used the plastic bits that made up its case to try and pick the lock... Can't believe he broke the cell phone! That's ok - I have something in mind to recover from this, and it's going to be nice and creepy. >: ) After he broke his phone, I decided to let him out - the lock clicked, and he opened the door...

Finally it was Richard's turn. He did some of the usual introspective things - who am I, how do I know how to talk, walk, etc. I've noticed about half of my players are introspective, half aren't - should be an interesting dynamic to watch unfold during the first real session. Anyway - Richard's item was duct tape, which he decided to put to use by throwing it at the light on the ceiling. After a few minutes of playing around in this manner, the lock clicked, and he opened the door...

Colt's session

I ran Colt last night through the intro and the first room. I did better with the intro this time - felt a bit more nature reading it out than it did last time. I'm rather self-conscious about performing for people, but I surprised myself last night. Like Tasha, Colt did quite a bit of introspection - a lot of 'how am I able to speak, think, know things, without having learned them? How am I aware that this is strange?' - that sort of thing.

I'm very interested in letting them do that sort of thing in the first room. He found his item - a box of colored chalk - very soon after entering the room, but I wanted to let this play out for a while, so I kept him in there for longer than the 5 minutes my notes called for.

He tried a number of interesting things - he used the chalk to draw a key upon the floor, hoping that would somehow conjure a key into existence that he could use to unlock the door. He drew a window on the wall hoping it would become real and open for him. I'm sure those were inspired by the Dark Tower... He tried visualizing the door opening. While trying these things, I told him that he felt somewhat silly for doing so, and that he had the intuition that none of these mentalist strategies would work.

Finally, as his ideas started to wind down, he heard a loud mechanical click coming from the door. Immediately he went to try the knob, and he opened the door...

I can't wait for this Sunday, when Sami and Sandor get to go through this same thing - and the group finally meets up. I still need to make Colt's character - I ran him without making it first, but that's ok, because he only made one roll last night - an untrained Crafts skill check. I'll make the character proper tonight when I get home.

First mini-sessions

So I ran Tasha and Chris through the first room last night.

The idea is that I would read the intro to all my players, then one on one run them through the first room. It's a very simple room - there's almost nothing to it - but I decided last night that I should try and get this out of the way during the week, rather than wait until Sunday to do this for everyone. Part of the reason is that I don't know exactly how long it will take for everyone to get through the room, and I don't want all my other players to be bored while I run someone else.

The room's basic premise is this: it's a small 10 by 10 concrete cell, with a chair, a dome light on the ceiling, and a metal door. The player wakes up in this cell sitting in the chair, wearing white terry-cloth robes, with no memory of who or where they are. Despite the lack of memories, they're capable of speech, locomotion, etc. - they just don't know how they learned these things.

Each room contains one other item as well - a different item for each character, that has some significance to their former life, and although they don't remember that former life, holding the item feels eerily familiar.

Tasha was very introspective during her run. She considered a lot of mental, internal things - how she knows how to think in English, how she knows what a door is, a ceiling, how to walk, etc. She tried the door - locked - then found her item: a small half-size clipboard with 20 sheets of paper, and an attached pen. She spent about 5 minutes writing her introspections down until hearing a loud click at the door. She waited, thinking someone might be coming in, but when nobody did, she went to the door and found it unlocked. She opened the door...

Chris didn't do a whole lot of internal thinking. He took on almost roguish behavior, checking the entire room for traps or secrets before finding his item: a large, heavy flashlight. He shined it around, tried banging the doorknob off the door, then threw the flashlight at the dome light in the ceiling. The dome light turned off, but didn't shatter, so he was left in darkness. He searched around for the light, and found it - but then heard a loud click (the door unlocking). He froze immediately, believing to have triggered a trap, but after a short time with nothing happening, he rolled to the wall. The light began to slowly turn back on, and at this point he got up and continued trying to bash the doorknob off the door. After a few minutes of this pointless activity, he tried the knob again, finding it unlocked. He opened the door...

That's pretty much it for the first of the one-on-one sessions. Colt, Sami, and Sandor will be going through this same bit. Colt will probably do it during the week, but I'll probably still have to wait for Sami and Sandor on Sunday, since their schedule is kinda weird.

Introduction

This is what I intend to read to my players before we begin the game.

An eternity of darkness precedes you...

For the first time, you are aware of your existence. For a short time that is all there is of you - an affirmation of existence, but it doesn’t last. A shrillness and unpleasantness starts to fill your being, and every moment it intensifies. Before long, your existence is filled with this sensation; not heard, but felt. Within moments, every particle of your being - both mental and, you realize, physical - is tingling, buzzing, then screaming with pain. It continues to mount, growing more painful with each passing instant, threatening your sanity until ----

---- Peace. Warmth spreads over you, silencing the pain, calming the clamor in your mind and the chaos in your body. You feel a sensation of recall - a sense of past, distinct from the now; almost the seed of a memory. This is... familiar. You shift, weightless, consciously moving your muscles for the first time. There is stiffness but no discomfort.

Equilibrium shifts in your center, and you feel a gentle current around you flow faster. As the stream quickens, you realize without fear that your current sensation is that of being submerged completely underwater. The pace of the water quickens again. You feel a sense of vacuum beneath you, and without warning you drop down into deep darkness, out of the comfort of the water and into frigid air, and you crash onto a hard surface with a wet slapping sound. Gasping from the shock, you inhale a great breath of air, and immediately begin to choke on the water that has filled your lungs. You clamber awkwardly to your hands and knees, your head down, coughing out water and quickly gulping the harsh air, until weakness fills your body and unconsciousness begins to take you.

Unfamiliar footsteps approach you as you fade to black...

...

You awaken in a small concrete block room. You are clothed in white robes and seated in a small metal 4-legged chair at the end of the room. The air is crisp and smells of ozone. Twenty feet above you, a small dome light provides fair but flickering illumination. At the far end of the room is a closed steel door.

Who are you? Where are you? Why are you here? These are among the questions that are welling inside your mind. Perhaps the answer is here.

It begins.

This is a blog for my game, so far unnamed - 'A Game of Questions' is just something I came up with on the fly... Although that's not an official title, it's not misleading - everything in this game is a question, from who the characters are, to where they are.

The system is the World of Darkness, whatever the newest revision is. I'm not using *any* of the settings, societies, supernatural elements, etc. - everything is hand-made by yours truly. I've run this game a couple times using various d20 systems, but I feel that the WoD system is more suitable to the freeform style of play that I'd like to provide. Plus it's probably the easiest system in the world to use for both the players and myself...

Anywho - to the game itself:

The characters are people who have no memory of themselves, their history, or their current situation. From their point of view, they were literally born *now*, though they are fully grown adults capable of everything a normal human adult should be capable of - except remembering their own past. To mimic this out of game, each player is going to be given a blank character sheet (save for the player's name at the top). The players will *not* make their own characters, but will instead fill in details that they learn by trial and error, and as opportunities for introspection arise.

Meanwhile the characters will be exploring a very strange environment; a rough analog to our normal reality, but the rules are bent - think Escher meets The Twilight Zone meets Portal.

I don't want to get into too many details here; my players may end up reading this, which would be fine - but I don't want to let anything out of the bag. =) So... enjoy!